


stumbling, fumbling, tumbling around in the dark

by eckarius



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Aromantic Asexual Character, Ben Hargreeves is Alive, Depression, Drug Addiction, Eating Disorders, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, Lesbian Character, M/M, Mental Instability, Nonbinary Character, Not Canon Compliant, Past Child Abuse, Sex Work, Sexual Assault, Slow Burn, klaus accepts the love he thinks he deserves, which is none
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-16
Packaged: 2020-05-19 11:14:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19355905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eckarius/pseuds/eckarius
Summary: Klaus has been living on the street for about a year.His family has barely seen him in the fourteen years since he left home.After a traumatic experience that leaves him as a ghost of his former self, Klaus is brought back into their lives, and believes that his suffering is over. However, recovery is never that easy.





	1. Any Other Night

According to astronomers, stars live about ten billion years. How they ever managed to figure that out, Klaus didn’t know. But, maybe that’s what Luther was going to do up in space, taking a tally of every star he sees, tracking their lifespans using small pencil marks and sending the data back to dear old Dad every single day. Knowing the poor bastard, his dedication to Reggie and to being “the good son,” it made sense to assume he was trapped to a life of monotony on the moon. It made Klaus glad he got out when he did.

Tonight is one of those nights where he loses himself in thought, sat at the counter in Country Fried Bucky’s, chewing on some day-old biscuits to stave off the loud, violent growling in his gut. At some point, he learned that hunger pains were caused by stomach acid dissolving the stomach lining to sap some nutrients, but it was Ben who told him that, and Ben fucked with him too frequently for him to know if it was a fact or not. As far as Ben was concerned, Klaus’s stomach was a burst balloon, and stomach acid was eating away at his soft, squishy innards.

The LED sign behind the counter buzzes, in the kitchen the line cook is throwing dishes into the massive washer, and the smell of sopping wet food is pungent in Klaus’s nostrils. He covers his nose with his hand, immediately regretting his decision. His hand smells salty and musty like he’d rubbed his hands underneath his armpits and then dipped them into a pile of stale cigarette ashes. He hasn’t washed his hands since yesterday, he makes a mental note to do that before Bucky’s closes.

Behind him, at a plastic-lined booth, a woman is clinking a fork against her plate. She ordered mashed potatoes and country gravy and took about an hour to finish the entire plate. Klaus faintly knows her, she’s fifty-something, divorced, and comes to Bucky’s every night because otherwise, she has to spend the night alone. While he’d offer to spend some time with her, he also knows that she doesn’t want to learn that he hasn’t had a permanent residence in nearly ten years and that he’s never known the touch of someone who loves him. Well, she might relate to that last bit, but he also doesn’t want this woman to relate to him. At least she has a stable job, an apartment, and enough money to eat three meals a day. Klaus can barely make enough to pay his dealer and still afford a hot dog from a food cart.

He picks at a rock-hard, crumbling biscuit, and rubs his under eye, smearing his eyeliner down his face. The eyeliner hides the red rims around his eyes and helps blend his dark circles into his face so they don’t stand out like two deep bruises. They look more intentional with the eyeliner, less akin to two big, grim reminders that Klaus doesn’t have a safe place to sleep, and he gets two hours on a good night. The stolen Benadryl helps with his fatigue.

“Folks, we’re closing up.” Bucky himself comes out from the back, wiping his hands on his greasy apron.

The divorcée finally sets down her silverware, and leaves her total on the table, along with a tip. Like she needs a receipt when she’s memorised the total of the one meal she gets here, along with the correct tip.

Klaus takes the last few stale biscuits and throws them into the shallow pocket of his jacket, one of the last remnants connecting him to his life before he left his old life. The jacket belonged to Allison, it used to be shiny like raven’s feathers but quickly turned dull from exposure. It suits him, at least that’s what a few guys have told him. Klaus loves the jacket, lovingly repairing it when it got a hole, eventually becoming a patchwork of fabric from old tee shirts and pairs of pants found in the trash outside thrift stores.

He misses his siblings to an extent, but he knows that they’d never take him back, they’d never want to see his sad, bony face ever again. And he doesn’t blame them.

He saunters out into the night, past the bright red sign hanging in the window and down the street. The sidewalk is crumbling like his biscuits, and clusters of grass sprout out from the cracks. He runs his hand over the bark of a tree planted on the sidewalk, its roots likely causing the cracks. His fingertips catch on protruding chips of bark. Klaus exhales slowly, dropping his head and squeezing his eyes shut.

He has no idea where he’s going to go tonight. He can go to the dumpster behind Bucky’s and curl up underneath some crumpled cardboard, but now that he actually has food in his stomach, he knows he’ll end up heaving at the smell. There’s always the option to go to the homeless shelter, but the guys there all have beef with Klaus. Even Charlie hates him, and Charlie’s a hippie who sits outside the saddest, greyest buildings in Brooklyn, holding a “Jesus Loves You” sign with no motive other than to put smiles on people’s faces.

It’s November. Klaus is trembling at the cold and his breath comes out in dense clouds of steam. He begs whichever sad fuck out there doomed him to a life of homelessness, addiction, and mental health problems for a warm bed. Is that too much to ask?

Most nights, that is too much to ask. Most nights Klaus is stuck sitting in a dark alley, huddling into a corner and hoping he doesn’t freeze to death the second he closes his eyes. Sometimes he’s lucky, and a guy briefly takes him into his heated car, fucks him raw, and promptly throws him back out onto the street with a twenty burning a hole in his pocket. But his racing heart keeps him warm for a while.

“A while” is the most important thing to Klaus. If he can eat enough to keep the hunger pangs away for _a while,_ he’s happy. If he can spend _a while_ with a guy who takes him somewhere warm and comfortable, his night is made. The low-quality drugs his dealer pumps him with keep him positive and smiling for _a while_. “A while” is what keeps him from throwing himself into the Hudson River. If something will keep him breathing for a few more hours, Klaus isn’t opposed to it. Hence why his whole life now relies on what keeps him alive and kicking in the now. If the drugs kill him in ten years, if the starvation ultimately harms him, if he’s caught some fatal STD, he doesn’t care. Because right now, he’s as happy as he possibly could be in his situation.

Klaus tucks his hands into his pockets, glancing at all the flashing signs and cars lazily driving down the road. He walks a couple of blocks, his legs are already aching again and his blisters rub against the canvas of his beaten Converse. A couple of streets down, someone blares their horn, and a car shrieks to a halt. Another car’s alarm starts to squeal through the night, and he’s thankful to not walk in silence. It’s a welcome break from his feet padding on the sidewalk and his own breathing.

He kicks a particularly sharp rock down a long stretch of sidewalk before he has to cross the street. Klaus doesn’t look when he crosses, he can’t hear anyone coming and if they do, who cares? Just means he doesn’t have to worry about the consequences of his mistakes in a couple of years.

Klaus looks up once he crosses the street. The first thing he notices is a sign reading “Temple of Ezekiel,” light blue text on a white background written below a dark blue Star of David, and accompanied by an illuminated sign. “Come into warmth, come into His light.” Just reading the word “warmth” sends some electricity to his brain, telling him he should at least try to ask for refuge. Even if it’s just for a couple of hours, it’s better than a night sleeping next to a leaky dumpster.

He goes to the tall doors, dark wood carved with intricate weaving patterns. While there are lights on inside, Klaus doesn’t feel comfortable knocking on the door. Maybe there’s some kind of service going on, admittedly he doesn’t know much about Judaism. Maybe late-night services are typical.

Klaus goes to the window, rainbow-coloured stained glass formed into a pattern resembling a flaming star. He peeks through the corner, though the textured glass distorts the inside of the synagogue. All he sees is the kind of decoration you’d expect in a house of worship: pews, a platform with a podium atop it, though it feels much cozier than he’d expect. It’s a fairly small synagogue, so that’s fair, but it feels less barren and sterile than most churches he’s seen in movies and TV.

There are a few figures sat on the platform, holding things in their hands and hunching over themselves. He also spots a few people lying on the pews, covered with sheets and blankets. Still, a part of him nags him to keep walking. He feels like he’s intruding.

“Hey!” Someone yells out, and Klaus ducks into the bush next to the window. “Put the spray paint down and I won’t call the cops, alright?”

Klaus slowly stands back up, shaking a bit, holding up his hands. Whoever yelled approaches him, and they step into the pool of light being cast by the temple’s sign. It’s a guy: tall, blonde and wearing a very soft-looking bomber jacket. He looks a bit disgruntled until he takes in the sight of wild-eyed Klaus, his anger melts into sympathy and confusion.

“What are you doin’ out here? Did you get lost?” He looks over Klaus, a kind smile on his face.

“A bit. Are they allowing homeless—homeless people to spend the night here?” He gestures at the synagogue. The guy nods quickly, not having put together himself that this disheveled guy was anything more than a poorly-dressed junkie. Well, he is a junkie, among other things.

The guy walks back to the steps and stops to watch Klaus follow him. “Please, come inside.”

He opens the door, and immediately a rush of warm air embraces Klaus. He smiles to himself, though he refuses to step inside. Klaus waits until the guy goes in, but it seems like the guy won’t move until Klaus does. So, just for the sake of this guy, he enters the synagogue before they both freeze to death.

The guy ushers Klaus to a pew and disappears into a back room. He looks around the synagogue, glancing at all the people lying around, looking comfortable for the first time in ages. Klaus’s eyes become heavy, he yawns into the palm which reads “Good Bye.” He closes his eyes for a second. When he closes them, he sees distorted, horrifically deformed faces that he could only create in his nightmares. They scream, they shriek and wail for Klaus to save them and he can’t do anything. All he can do is twitch and squirm, unable to open his eyes.

“Hey, sir.” The man comes back, shaking Klaus’s shoulder and waking him up. Klaus jumps awake, startled by the man. He furrows his brow, scowling to himself. “Oh, I’m sorry.”

Klaus waves his hand at the guy. The guy puts a styrofoam cup in his hand, filled with steaming black coffee. He brings the cup to his face and inhales the scent, exhaling with a long sigh. He sinks back into the pew, and the guy sets a blue fleece blanket next to him. “Thank you,” he murmurs, drinking the coffee and taking a long moment to appreciate the fact that it's coffee instead of semen warming his throat.

“Of course.” The guy continues to stand there, just watching Klaus drink his coffee. He doesn’t notice until he sets the empty cup down and looks back up at the guy.

“Why’re you watching me?” Klaus unfolds the blanket and pulls it over himself, he wants to stretch out and sigh in relief. He watches the guy act out the physical equivalent of stammering. He blinks and shakes his head, grinning uncomfortably.

“Oh. Didn’t notice. Apologies.” He tries to laugh it off, and Klaus laughs back, endeared by his awkwardness. “Just don’t see many guys who look like you coming in here.”

Klaus cocks an eyebrow, a smirk growing on his face. “Pretty guys? Or guys who embody their depression and daddy issues through fashion and eating disorders?”

The guy rubs the back of his neck, smiling gently.

“I guess I meant young guys. Clever guys. Maybe pretty.” He teases, which just eggs Klaus on even further. He slides down the pew, giving the guy room to sit down. Thankfully, he does.

“Do you pick up all the guys like that?” Klaus doesn’t know where this is gonna lead. Maybe this guy will take him to the back room, but that’s probably blasphemy to fuck another guy in a synagogue. Though, if they go out back, it’s probably fine.

The guy smiles, shaking his head quickly.

“No. I’m not the kind to make the first move.” He shrugs, and Klaus nods back at him.

“So that’s why you wouldn’t come in until I did!” Klaus fakes shock, which makes the guy laugh. A guy sleeping a few pews up from them groans, shifting around and making a scene of it. Klaus covers his mouth, silently giggling.

The guy holds his hand out to Klaus. “I’m Dave.”

Klaus pauses, not sure if he should shake the guy’s hand or not. He decides to humour the guy.

“Klaus.” He shakes Dave’s hand, and they both shake a bit violently, neither of them letting go until Dave retracts his hand, laughing into his palm.

He gets up from the pew, smiling at Klaus for a moment before he steps up to the podium. He raises his voice just a little, explaining that he’s going home, the synagogue’s doors will be locked from the outside but they can leave whenever they wish, and that the rabbi will open the doors at seven am.

“We’re asking for you to clear out at around nine, but you can stay and chat with Rabbi Blum. We’re going to have donuts and coffee for breakfast.” Dave steps down from the podium, dims the lights in the temple, and walks down the middle of the pews, wishing everyone a good night. He stops at the back, just before the foyer leading to the front doors. He smiles at Klaus, pulling his beanie over his hair and reminding Klaus of a modern-day, slightly less fashionable James Dean. The bomber jacket helps him out in that regard, though. A maroon, faux-velvet jacket, Klaus wishes he owned something like that.

“G’night, Klaus. I’m glad you came tonight.” He pulls his gloves on, too, the kind with thinner fabric on the thumb and index finger so the wearer can still use their phone with the gloves on. Klaus nods at him, lying back on the pew.

“Glad I met you, Dave.” He closes his weary eyes before Dave leaves the synagogue. The sound of the doors clicking closed is accented by a cold gust of wind flitting into the temple. The screaming faces are back for him. Still, he’s too comfortable to jump awake when the nightmare feels too real.

* * *

Dave Katz is your typical, all-American man. Early thirties, charming smile, and most importantly, deeply spiritual. He’s volunteered at his temple for about six years now, taking a particular interest in any event dedicated to helping the homeless population. Because that’s just what thoughtful people do, according to his mother. They help underprivileged people and try to improve their quality of life.

It’s 11:49 pm. How he’s going to get up for work in the morning, he doesn’t know. He has to get up at 4:30 just so he has time to get ready, feed his cat, and clean up around the house, and leave at 5 to catch the subway.

He’s thankful that he at least has a stable job, his volunteer work has taught him to appreciate that fact. But, still, people aren’t perfect, and they long for a lot more than they could ever have in one lifetime. He’s learning to curb the desire for more.

Dave climbs up the steps to his apartment building, scanning his key card and shuffling into the building as quickly as possible so he doesn’t alert Mrs. Grady that he’s coming in late.

The poor woman is an insomniac, so she spends her waking hours obsessively cleaning her apartment, and recreating crafts and recipes she finds on Pinterest. On more than one occasion, she’s called Dave in to her apartment so she can feed him a nice kosher meal she found on “the Pinterest.” She comments on how he looks so skinny, despite being a solid 180 pounds. Though, the leftovers usually end up going to anyone who hunkers up in the synagogue for the night, so the extras don’t go to waste.

Thankfully, Mrs. Grady is asleep, and Dave gets to his apartment without any interruptions. The apartment is dark, save for the small rays of streetlight that pour in through his window. His cat, a ginger rescue named Angel, is sprawled on her cat tree, her belly facing the ceiling. Dave goes over to her, gently touching her head with his fingertips. She mewls, opening her eyes and purring at the sight of him.

He rubs underneath her chin, and presses kisses onto her furry forehead. “Hey, Angel,” he puts on a baby voice to talk to her, and she meows at him in response. He likes to think she talks back to him, though what she says is an utter mystery to him.

Dave fed her before he left, so the most he does is refill her water bowl and leave her to sleep in the living room, beside the kitchenette. He throws off his jacket, leaving it on the beaten sofa and kicks off his sneakers.

He thinks briefly about Klaus. What’s his story? How did he end up on the streets? Of course, Dave wonders this about everyone, but there’s something different about Klaus. He just can’t place what it is.

He lies down in bed, glancing over to a photo of his family. It was taken around nine years ago when Dave was twenty-two. He was dressed in black graduation robes, his gold and purple tassel pushed over to the left side of his face. He held his diploma in front of his chest, and he tried to mask his discomfort with an easy smile. However, that didn’t work. Beside him, his mother has an arm over his shoulder, a broad, proud smile on her face. On his right side, his dad, his arm wrapped around Dave’s neck, and a dizzy, dazed look on his face. His nose and cheeks were flushed red. It was one of the last pictures taken of his dad before liver failure took him, and, in proper fashion for Arthur Katz, he was shit-faced.

Dave’s eyebrows furrow, his eyes are misty. “Goodnight, Mom. Goodnight, Dad.” He clicks his bedside light off and wipes the tears away. He doesn’t like to cry before he goes to bed, it’s bad luck to go to bed sad.

When times get tough for Dave, he lies in bed, staring at his college graduation photo. He talks to his dad, hoping that wherever he is, he can hear Dave’s quiet chatter. He tells his dad about work, about the funny stories Mrs. Grady recounts about her husband, about the homeless veterans who tell Dave what shrapnel and dead bodies smell like.

Every night that he stares at that photo, he wishes he’d put on a truly happy face for the camera. Even if he was upset with his dad for getting drunk for his only son’s graduation, he hates reminding himself how unhappy he was that day. And there he goes again, wishing for more. Wishing he could retake a photo because he didn’t like how he looked in it. If only he could have just smiled. Why couldn’t he just fucking smile?

Dave hears Angel shuffling around in the living room before she pushes open his bedroom door and jumps up onto his bed. She paces around the bed, eventually lying down in the gap between his side and his arm, rubbing her head against his hand. He sniffles, and pets her head. Tomorrow will be better. It can only be better than this.


	2. Sleepless in Manhattan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning: this chapter contains rape/assault

Across the Brooklyn Bridge, a woman has just completed a concerto. She sets her violin into its case, snapping the locks shut and picking up her mug of decaf tea. She dips the tea bag into the steeped water a couple of times before taking a sip. Now, it’s not so much boiling as comfortably warm, leaving an herbal taste in the back of her mouth. On the street below, cars rush past her apartment building. She inhales slowly and exhales a deep sigh.

It’s past midnight. She sits on her sofa, folding one pajama-clad leg over the other and propping them up on her coffee table.

Tomorrow she’s meeting Allison for brunch at some cute café down the street. Afterward, she’s going to visit Ben at his bookshop before she goes to the Icarus Theatre for practice. She’s not excited to see Helen again, but it doesn’t stop her from attending practice every week. If Helen deterred her from showing up for one practice, she might as well kiss first chair goodbye.

She tips her head over the edge of the sofa, bouncing her foot to a non-existent beat. The mug is balanced on her stomach, it does wonders for her menstrual cramps. Allison’s been telling her to try one of those Diva Cups, going on about how they’re easy to use, how good they are for the environment, et cetera. Vanya doesn’t know if she believes any of that, but she can’t figure out how to comfortably use a tampon, so she’s convinced she’ll put it in improperly, and she’ll end up ruining all of her jeans.

Her radiator clicks, and she gets up to turn it off. She trudges to her bedroom, tea in hand. Her bedroom retains heat well, so she doesn’t worry about it getting cold while she sleeps. Vanya sits down on the edge of her bed, rubbing her hands over her upper arms. They’re feeling fairly scaly, figures she has another eczema flare up right after she’s run out of her usual lotion. She pulls out her CeraVe, massaging it into her arms and grumbling about how stupid she was. She’d have to wait until payday to get another bottle of that specific lotion.

“So fucking forgetful.” She throws the CeraVe back onto her nightstand and flicks off her light. Vanya takes her phone out, scrolling through Spotify briefly before she picks a “Soothing Piano” playlist. She can’t sleep without noise, and since she doesn’t have a TV, she makes do with her phone.

She throws the playlist on shuffle, so the first song that plays is “Bella’s Lullaby” from the first Twilight movie. Vanya was twenty when it came out, but she distinctly remembers taking Allison and Ben to go see it (Diego thought it was a dumb chick flick, Luther was too preoccupied with his degree in astronomy to bother coming with them, Five hadn’t been adopted yet, and Klaus had left home by then). They were all stoned when the went to see it, and they fell over themselves laughing at the movie. But, being perfectly fair, the soundtrack is immaculate and Vanya has been listening to it unironically ever since.

When she’s in a rut emotionally, she blasts “Bella’s Lullaby” and imagines a gorgeous vampire woman sweeping her off of her feet, offering to turn her into a creature of the night so she doesn’t have to worry about aging, maintaining her job, or saving money for a retirement fund. Truthfully, Vanya imagines a golden-eyed Kristin Stewart playing piano with her as they both fight to play the most beautiful serenade to each other. Then she turns Vanya into a vampire and they live happily ever after, evading their taxes and being Sapphic vampire-couple goals.

She turns onto her stomach, shoving her arms underneath her pillow and exhaling loudly. Sleep can’t take her quickly enough.

* * *

Ben smells like sweat. Either A, he forgot his deodorant, or B, lifting numerous fifty-pound boxes of books caused him to break a sweat. Frankly, both seem likely.

He made this observation while vacuuming the bookshop just after closing, despite it being November the shop acquired leaves like nobody’s business. He’s been blasting 80’s pop to keep him company, playing them quite loudly to drown out the noise of the vacuum. Right now, he’s screaming along to “Take On Me” and pushing the vacuum to the beat of the song.

“Taaaaaaake oooooooon meeeeeeeee, _take! On! Me!”_ He mumble-sings to himself, humming and vacuuming up the crumbled remains of the leaves. Ben turns the vacuum cleaner off and spins it around a bit jerkily. “Taaaaaaake meeeeeeeee _oooooooon!_ _Take! On! Me!”_ He dips the vacuum cleaner and hugs it close to himself.

“I’ll be _gooooooone,”_ he pauses to caress the handle of the vacuum cleaner, before letting go of it. “In a day or _twooooooooo!”_ He dances violently to the instrumental, giving him a cramp in his side. He grunts, hunching over and trying to rub the cramp out.

He hobbles over to the outlet, unplugging the vacuum and slowly rolling it into the closet in the back of the store. The song finishes up, and Ben is now being subjected to “Come On Eileen.” Despite his cramp, he tries to dance to it and sings along like he’s word-slurring drunk.

Back when he and his siblings were kids (and before Five joined the family), they’d gather in the living room when Dad was off on business trips. Back when they were all together, and they were still fairly normal. They’d bring out all their LPs and dance around the record player on the coffee table like they were trying to summon the singers and bands they were listening to. Luther would dance fairly spastically, Diego actually had a semblance of prowess, Allison threw her arms around her head, Klaus would spin around until he got dizzy and fell to his knees, Ben mimed singing and jumped in place, and Vanya grooved in the whitest way possible. 

It makes him miss his family. He’s tried his best to keep in contact with each of his siblings, but they’ll all slipped out of touch, save for himself, Allison, and Vanya. Even then, he barely talks to Allison unless he’s invited to have breakfast or lunch due to his closeness with Vanya.

So, he gets stuck reminiscing, as always. The whole dynamic between them has fizzled out since they all came of age. It first started to crack when Klaus started running away from home, aged thirteen. He’d always be found by the police officers that the kids had named Hazel and Cha-Cha. Though, that never deterred him from trying to leave once again. Mom, back when they didn’t call her “Mom,” would cry, worrying that Klaus was lost, hurt, wishing he was home. Diego would comfort her, and Ben and Vanya would sit together at the living room window, hoping to see the cop car come up and for Hazel and Cha-Cha to return their brother, unharmed. He always came back, until age sixteen. 

That night was Easter, Klaus had been arguing with Dad like always. They were yelling at each other in his study, and the whole family had gathered outside the door, listening in with horrified looks on their faces, or tears in their eyes.

He was yelling at Klaus for having condoms in his room, hiding underneath lube that he bought at the pharmacy down the street. He was berating Klaus for wasting his money, and that he wasn’t old enough to be having sex (never mind that Diego and Allison had girlfriends and boyfriends before that point, but they were smart enough to not keep any of that stuff in the house). More so, the condoms and lube were still sealed, so Klaus had no idea why Dad was so pissed.

At some point, Klaus called him a “fascist bastard,” which resulted in a sharp, slapping noise echoing through the door. Allison jumped back, sobbing quietly into her hands, and Vanya grabbed Ben’s hand, squeezing it tight. Luther and Diego tried to put on brave faces, but Ben could tell that Diego was about to break and hug Mom, who looked so grey and solemn listening to her husband beat their son. Collectively, they felt powerless. There was nothing they could do to stop Dad, and they couldn’t just burst in and save Klaus. All they could do was sit in silent horror and wait until it was over.

After the slap, Klaus lost his fire, and quietly defended himself to Reginald. He didn’t listen to Klaus’s pleading, instead opting to call him “disgusting.”

“I give you the chance to live a comfortable life, given every luxury you could ever ask for, and yet you still sneak around behind my back and disobey me? You haven’t just disappointed me, you’ve disappointed your mother, and your siblings. We’re all ashamed of you, Klaus.” His footsteps receded. “Now, leave. Run away if you want. No one is going to come after you. You’re not worth the effort.”

After a moment of silence, everyone got up from the door, stepping back far enough to give Klaus room. When he opened the door, Vanya ran up to him and hugged him close, followed by a dogpile of the rest of his siblings, and their mom. Ben caught Reginald watching them from his desk, just before the door slammed shut.

Later that night, Ben heard Klaus slip out of their shared bedroom. He didn’t bring anything with him then, just a small amount of things he could carry in the pockets of Allison’s jacket. Meaning, he only took his dwindling stash of drugs and left a note on the front door that Mr. Pogo found the next morning. Their regularly-scheduled lessons were postponed, unlike the other times when Klaus ran away. This time felt permanent. And, as they would later learn, it was.

Ben has only seen Klaus a handful of times in the fourteen years since he left. He rarely ever spoke to Klaus, only learning that he’d been to rehab dozens of times, and he always ended up back there eventually. At that point in Klaus’s life, he was couch surfing, living with his partners until they got sick or him, or vice versa. But, according to Diego, since last year he’s been living on the streets and has been on watch as a potential prostitute.

Just the idea that Klaus is a sex worker now is enough to convince Ben to seek him out, offer him a job at the bookshop, offer to get him clean, for fuck’s sake. He has no idea where he’d look for Klaus, but he’s beginning to consider hitting up every homeless shelter, every rehab clinic, every emergency room in hopes that he’ll finally reunite with his brother.

Ben turns the music off, along with the lights, and retreats up the stairs into his apartment, feeling much more defeated than he planned to.

* * *

Klaus is awakened by the feeling of someone shaking him. His eyes shoot open, and he looks up to find two guys, two of the guys that were previously sleeping. They’re staring down at him, shadows are covering their faces and Klaus feels terrified. They appear like ghosts, tall, dark figures that don’t speak, don’t move. He shivers. His stomach is turning over itself, his mouth waters like he’s going to vomit.

“Are you real?” Klaus tries to make out their faces, his eyes darting between the two of them. He retracts back into the pew, his eyes the size of dinner plates.

The two guys move forward, grabbing Klaus and making him shriek. One of the guys clasps his hand over Klaus’s mouth. He kicks them, he snarls and tries to bite the guy’s hand, but he doesn’t do any damage. In a brief moment of genius, he scratches them, leaving red marks on their hands and faces. He’s dragged down the aisle between the pews, and before he’s dragged in darkness, he sees the stained glass shooting star again. If only Dave were here, then maybe this wouldn’t be fucking happening. Maybe his weak, skinny ass wouldn’t have to defend himself. 

They bring him into the back room.

Klaus is thrown onto his stomach, and his eye catches a short orange thread on the ground. It looks like it was cut, both edges are frayed. It’s only a few inches away from him, but he sees it in such heavy detail that it feels surreal. He stares at it, notices the intricate weaving of hundreds of stands, forming it into a thin braid.

It’s the colour of a basketball, like the one that he and Ben kicked around their room when they were grounded.

Where did the thread come from? Klaus imagines that it came from a shoe, maybe an orange Converse. Or, maybe it came from a tee shirt. A bright orange shirt likely bought from a thrift store down the road, donated to one of the people that the synagogue helps. Maybe it belonged to one of those overly-specific shirts you could only order online. “Don’t mess with me, I’m a crazy May guy, fuck with me and they’ll never find your body,” that kind of thing. Probably a flaming skull on the front, with a distressed American flag in the background.

If he could move his arms, he’d bring it over to the thread and pick it up, squish it between his fingers and examine it. Bring himself back to Earth. But, he doesn’t want to come back down yet.

Unfortunately, he’s brought back to the moment when he pukes. His mouth burns, he spits out the lingering taste of stomach acid and the remnants of the coffee and biscuits. Klaus shivers, coughing and hoping he’ll be let go soon. He starts crying, his back quivering.

He hasn’t cried like this in years. He’s barely making any noise, but his face is quickly turning red and he’s breathing jerkily. While part of him hopes someone out there can hear him, he feels that either they won’t care, or they’ll come and join the two guys hovering over him. Klaus feels himself getting sick at the smell of his own vomit.

He doesn’t have any fight in him. He feels so goddamn humiliated, so weak, what’s even the point in trying to fight? They’re going to do what they will, and leave Klaus shaking and crying, half-naked in the back room of the temple.

A rancid smell fills the air. Klaus doesn’t know if it’s the men, himself, or his vomit. He just quietly sobs to himself, digging his nails into the carpet and whimpering.

He made a mistake coming here. He made a fucking massive mistake that only he could have. His head is spinning, he feels himself finally going a bit limp, and he pleads to whoever will listen for it to end. _Why couldn’t I just choke on my own vomit? Why didn’t I just sleep out in the cold and freeze? Why did my dumbass decide to come here? Why did I leave?_

The faces of his siblings flash through his head, even little Five, who he faintly knows from a few news reports about him aiming to become the world’s youngest tech mogul, and every single face is crying. They all ask Klaus why he left, they beg to know why he abandoned them, what was so much better than being a part of the family. And truthfully, he didn’t know. Despite how much he hates Reginald Hargreeves, despite his wishes for Reggie to up and die already so he can buy all the drugs he needs to kill himself in a night, somehow getting slapped constantly by his asshole dad is better than this. Though he never saw his home as a safe space, at least he had his siblings to remind him why life was worth living. This temple was supposed to be safe, but that handsome fucking bastard left him to fend for himself, and now he’s getting his insides ripped out through his ass and he hopes in vain that he bleeds out tonight.

Klaus screams, and a hand grabs his hair, pushing his face into his vomit. His voice is deep and scratchy, he says something that Klaus can’t make out, and he tries to bring his hand down to his mouth. He carefully snakes two fingers into his mouth, prodding them at the back of his throat. While he barely has a gag reflex, his stomach is already churning, he knows he’ll be able to force himself to puke.

He jabs away until he hits the spot. Klaus heaves, spilling his guts onto the floor once more. The guys make some noise, and yet, they don’t stop. He has no clue what else to do. There’s nothing else he can do.

Tears blur his vision, and he squeezes his eyes shut, bringing back the nightmare faces that were once his siblings. He lies his hand down in his sick, sobbing like a small child. His legs went numb a long time ago. His head feels like lead. A creature with a mouth split ear-to-ear stares at Klaus, his eyes wide and unblinking, rimmed in shadows. Maybe they’re going to kill Klaus once they’re done with him. Hopefully, they throw his body out somewhere else, so Dave doesn’t have to find his naked, raped, bloodied body in his house of worship. The poor guy is probably gonna have to clean it up, though.

It seems like so long ago they were sat on the pew, talking about nothing to each other. Like another lifetime, one where Klaus was just popping into the synagogue to see what all the fuss around Judaism was about, and by sheer chance he met Dave. Maybe in that lifetime, they could have been friends, meeting every week or so at a diner and chatting about their lives. In that lifetime Klaus was sober, well on his feet, and healthy enough to live well into his eighties. In that lifetime, Klaus didn’t abandon his family.

In that lifetime, Klaus wasn’t a worthless piece of shit.

* * *

Diego is sat at the station, doing basic tricks with his knife to pass the time. It’s seven-thirty am, the earliest he’s ever made it to the station without Patch having to force him awake and walk him through the process of a typical adult’s morning routine. He takes an occasional sip from his Starbucks, waiting for Patch and Beeman to return from a meeting with their captain.

There’s a tense air in the station today. But, that’s to be expected, yesterday a bomb threat was called into the station, and it turned out to be legitimate. Three were injured, and so far they’re all expected to recover. Everyone’s worried that there will be more threats coming in, and Diego ran through every possible attack last night, trying to figure out how he could single-handedly save the day. Some of those hero fantasies involve Patch coming in when Diego is overwhelmed, and both of them acting as a proper power couple.

A few people pass by Diego, but they quickly look away when he sees them staring. Either his intimidation tactics are working, or he’s going to be promptly removed from the building (in which case, Patch and Beeman will sneak him back in, like they always do).

He props his legs up on the desk, flipping his knife and twirling it between his fingers. There’s not much to do, waiting for Patch and Beeman. He looks over the few officers sat at their desks, typing away or chattering about cases, or what they’re going to have for lunch. Another officer passes by, she looks utterly concerned.

Diego furrows his brow at her, and she covers her mouth, rushing by so she doesn’t have to make eye contact with him anymore. _What the hell is going on?_

From across the room, he sees Patch and Beeman standing outside the elevator. They glance from each other to Diego, and Patch steps forward, walking across the room and meeting Diego at her desk. Her face is very sullen, and that’s when worry pangs deep in his stomach. She sits down in Beeman’s chair and stares down at her lap.

Diego grabs her hands, and she looks up at him, sadness behind her eyes. She flattens her lips into a straight line, exhaling slowly.

“Diego, something happened.” Is all she gets out before she has to pause, to come up with how to say what she’s going to say next.

He rubs his thumbs over her knuckles. “Did Dad die? Did something happen to your _abuela?_ Ricki’s in prison again, isn’t he?”

Patch can’t bring herself to say anymore. Beeman comes in now, standing behind her and giving him the same uncomfortable face that she did. Diego’s only assumption is that Reggie’s dead, which was going to happen one of these days. However, that can’t be it. He’s told Patch and Beeman how shitty his dad was, and even though they tried to be sympathetic, they likely wouldn’t react to his death like that.

“Diego, we just took Klaus into the station. According to the guy who called, he was raped.” Beeman’s voice is unexpectedly smooth when he says this.

Diego sits utterly still for a moment. He lets go of Patch’s hands and picks his knife up from her desk. His fingers grasp the hilt tightly, his knuckles are turning white. He grimaces, using the hilt like a pair of hand grips.

“That guy better fucking hope I don’t find him.”


	3. An Unconventional Family Reunion

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for references to self harm, and suicidal ideation

Klaus is exhausted after giving his statement to the soft-voiced officer and taking a rape kit exam (along some STD screening). He just wants to curl up into a ditch and sleep for a few decades, maybe a few centuries. He isn’t even sure if he wants to go through this process, it’d be easier if he was just left to kill himself.

He’s sitting in the station’s soft room, wearing borrowed clothes from the lost and found. He wrings his wrist, planning what he’ll do next. He’ll head to the Hudson, it’s his default. If they really want to arrest two homeless men, put them in prison for the rest of their lives, he doesn’t care. He just wants to die.

Diego steps into the soft room, pulling up a chair and setting it in front of Klaus. He sits down, and leans over himself, looking just as tired as his brother.

“I...I’m so sorry, Klaus.” When he looks up from the floor, he’s horrified to find Klaus looking so utterly hopeless. Even when Klaus was beaten and bruised, he could still put a smile on his face, even if it was just for his brothers and sisters. There’s no light in his eyes, nothing he can even distinguish as happiness. He feels weak, feeling sad for someone else, feeling sad at all, but the haunted look on Klaus’s face totally justifies his reaction.

“‘s fine. Don’t worry about it, big bro.” His voice starts cracking, he tries to slip into his casual speaking tone just to alleviate Diego’s worry. Klaus tells himself it was bound to happen, that it was his fault for going into the synagogue that night. That meeting an incredibly handsome guy does not outweigh being violated and being found lying in his own vomit.

Klaus stretches out his legs and moans, pulling a muscle and immediately cramping up. He grimaces, and looks over to the TV mounted to the wall. The soft room must be intended for kids, as they’re playing PBS, a rerun of  _ Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood _ . The room is decorated with bean bag chairs, and a short table with crayons, makers, and construction paper. There’s decals of cartoon dinosaurs and knock-off superheroes.

Diego watches Klaus, he feels the hilt of his knife jabbing into his hip. His brother avoids his gaze, instead opting to look around the room and dig his nails into the heel of his palm. Diego shakes his head, pinching the bridge of his nose. He’s not sensitive, he doesn’t know what to say other than “what those guys did to you was shitty, and I’m going to do everything I can to get them arrested.” And while Diego has convinced himself that the accusation is true, there’s already a few eavesdropping officers that are saying Klaus just didn’t like it, so he decided to call it rape. Even if there was no physical evidence, no trauma, the look on his face is enough to prove it to Diego.

He didn’t listen to Klaus’s account of the events. He felt that he didn’t need to when the rabbi came in with him, and gave his story on how he found Klaus. A few other guys who’d crashed at the synagogue also came in to tell about how they saw the men drag Klaus into the back room, but they didn’t say anything at the time. One guy knew the names of the two guys who did it, so now a couple of officers are out trying to find the men.

“Remember when we used to watch  _ Mr. Rogers’ _ ? When we’d sneak out to get donuts from Griddy’s, then we’d come home and hole up in the living room and watch it all day?” Diego tries to get him to think about something better, to get him to smile at least once.

He can’t even bear to look at Klaus’s arms. They’re so skinny, bruised. He even has scars running up from his wrist to his elbow, and while Diego wants to convince himself that they weren’t intentional, he wasn’t stupid. Some were just thin and white, others thicker, raised, and a light pink. He doesn’t want to think about how shitty Klaus’s life has been for the past fourteen years.

Klaus nods, his lips pulling into a straight line. “Yeah. I loved the one where he went to the shoe store. I was so determined to go to a shoe store and go into the back, I thought it’d be as cool as it was in the show.”

“Then we got banned from Payless because an employee chased you around the back room and hit you with one of those steel-toe work boots.” Diego laughs, it’s an uncomfortable laugh, but a laugh, nonetheless.

His brother chuckles. “Yeah. That’s probably why I ended up being such a fucking idiot, y’know?”

Diego claps his hand on Klaus’s shoulder, quickly retracting it when he reminds himself that Klaus probably doesn’t want to be touched right now. Klaus looks down at his hands, and the room becomes hollow again. He gets up, leaving his brother to sit and stare at the TV, like he was stuck in a trance.

He goes over to Patch’s desk, he’s been debating whether he wants to call his siblings. On one hand, they’ll probably be happy to see Klaus again, but on the other, this is the worst pretense to reunite the family. Maybe he’ll just lie, say Klaus was coincidentally brought in to the station, but he’s not going to lie to them.

Diego taps his nail on Patch’s desk, staring down at his contact list. Allison is the first on his list. He doesn’t know what he is going to say. “Hey, Klaus was brought into the station because he was raped. Wanna come see him while he’s at his lowest point?”

He continues staring at her contact, his finger refusing to move.

* * *

 

Allison sets her fork down on her plate and picks up her second mimosa. Vanya is sat across from her, sipping coffee and holding her mug close to her face. It makes her face flush pink.

“ _ So, _ Claire’s coming over next weekend. Would Auntie Vanya like to come with us to the zoo?” Allison grins expectedly at Vanya, who shrugs, nodding quickly.

“Why not? I’d like to go see the penguins.” She sets her mug down, glancing over her shoulder to search for the waitress. She’s over at the window to the kitchen, chatting with one of the cooks. Vanya looks back over at Allison, putting a quick smile on her face. “Claire likes giraffes, right?”

Allison glimpses at her phone, Vanya guesses that she’s reading a text that popped up on her homescreen. “Nah, I think she likes elephants now. She’s been going on about all the cute videos she’s seen of baby elephants. Her favourite is this one video,” Allison’s voice perks up. “There’s this baby elephant sitting on the side of the road, and he refuses to get up. Reminds me of Claire’s temper tantrums.”

“That’s cute.” Vanya chuckles, her cold hands still wrapped around her coffee mug. It’s white with purple swirls, matching the white and purple aesthetic of the caf é. It even matches the table cloths, the edges resembling doilies. “What day are you guys planning to go?”

Again, Allison checks her phone. “Huh. Diego’s calling me.” She accepts the call, and puts on speakerphone. Vanya sees from across the table that Diego’s contact is titled “Go Diego Go,” surrounded by knife emojis and red-faced frowning emojis. His picture is an old photo of him when he was about fourteen, when he gave himself a poorly-done mohawk. It was lopsided, and the shaved bits of his head were very choppy and inconsistent. Vanya smiles at the picture. 

“Hey, what’s going on?” Allison leans over the table, placing the phone in the middle of the table so he can hear Vanya, too.

“Are you alone?” Diego asks, his voice more gravelly than normal. Allison’s eyebrows rise up her forehead, and she glances over at Vanya.

“No, Vanya’s here with me.” She looks between Vanya and her phone. She mouths “should we go outside?” at Vanya, who shrugs. “Is something wrong?”

The other side of the line is quiet for an unbearably long time. Vanya’s heart is racing in her chest, and Allison’s eyes are misting up. Vanya wants to reach across the table and hug her sister. “Who died?” Allison asks, pressing her hand over her mouth.

Diego sighs. Again, another pause.

“Look, Klaus is at the station. Something happened to him.”

Vanya’s heart drops to her stomach. “ _ No, _ ” she says to herself. “Did he get arrested? We could pool money together to bail him out—”

“Look, you’re not in public, right?” He sounds exhausted. Allison waves down the waitress, asking for their receipt. Vanya pulls out her wallet, giving Allison what she owes for brunch.

“Hang on.” She mutters to Diego, who grunts in response.

They pay their bill, leave the tip, and rush out to Allison’s car. “Okay, what happened?” Vanya holds the phone while Allison turns on her car, punching the station’s address into her car’s GPS.

“Some guys raped Klaus. He’s really rough right now.” Diego sounds utterly broken now, and it matches Allison and Vanya’s reactions. Still, she steps on the gas and speeds over to the police station.

“Have you found the guys yet?” Vanya keeps her cool, despite the fact that she’s crumbling to pieces inside. “He’s safe, right? Look, he can stay with me if he wants.”

“No, but we have a few officers out looking for them. He’s in our soft room right now, I’ll ask him if he wants to stay with you.” He responds, and Vanya sighs gently.

“Have you told anyone else yet?” Allison leans over, her eyes still planted on the road.

Vanya is simultaneously terrified that Allison is going to hit someone with her car, and horrified by what Diego has told them. She glances between Allison, sporting the most determined look, and the road, which flashes by them impossibly fast.

“I’m calling Ben next. I think I’m going to call Mom last.” Allison nods, like Diego can see her nodding.

“That’s probably a good idea. We’ll be there soon. Bye.” Vanya holds it out for Allison to say ‘bye,’ but Diego’s already hung up.

She sets the phone down in the drink holder, and leans back in her seat, covering her face with her hands. Allison’s not crying yet, but she’s on the verge. The rest of the car ride is spent in silence, but neither of them are complaining about that.

* * *

 

The Hargreeves family reunion is taking place in a police soft room. Thankfully, they are being watched by police officers that simply want to make them uncomfortable. Like the circumstances on which they came together weren’t uncomfortable enough. Luther is the last to arrive, he comes in while Allison is hugging Klaus close, crying into his shoulder. Though, Klaus isn’t really emoting at all. His face is pale, his eyes are dark, and he looks like every last ounce of life was sucked out of him.

“Luther,” Grace comes across the room, hugging him tightly. Her makeup is smudged under her eyes, but she still puts on a smile when she sees him. “I’m sorry, Dad couldn’t make it.”

“I’m not surprised,” Luther murmurs back. He lets go of Grace, and glances between all of the uncomfortable, distraught faces looking back at him. Allison approaches him, squeezing him in her arms and pulling back, looking up at him (despite being a fairly comparable height to him).

“Hey, Luther.” She says, her voice slightly hoarse. He can’t say he’s seen any of his family in a couple of years, though he’s kept in contact via Facebook. But he can safely say that this is the worst circumstance to facilitate a family reunion.

He goes and sits down on one of the bean bag chairs, he has to push past a few of his siblings just to cross the room. At the very least, he hopes this will end soon. He knows he looks comical hunched over on the chair, but no one is going to notice, because this whole meeting is about Klaus.

“It’s good to see you.” Klaus says to him, none of the usual jovial tone in his voice. He looks away, glancing over his family.

Ben is stood in the corner, arms crossed over his chest, staring down at his sneakers. Beside him is Vanya, her head resting on his shoulder. Grace has her hand on Five’s shoulder, and he looks both a little bit uncomfortable, and very prepared to leave. Maybe he’ll be able to convince her that he’ll take Five home, and they’ll both be spared from the waterworks (Luther has never been an emotional person, and he’s not going to start now). Diego has his arms crossed over himself, he’s trying to maintain his composure. And Allison is sitting across from him, wiping tears from her eyes. He wishes Dad was here. He wouldn’t let them all get upset over something that Klaus had coming.

Fuck, did he really just think that?

“Yeah.” He says in a flat monotone, and out of the corner of his eye he can see Klaus shrink.

“Why couldn’t we have met at the house?” Luther hits his knees with his palms lightly. “Why do we all have to stand around in the middle of a police station? Plus, we’re basically just leaving Dad out of all of this. It’s pretty shitty, honestly.”

Ben’s eyes go wide and Allison’s eyebrows furrow. Diego approaches him, kneeling down to his level.

“Klaus can’t leave yet. So we’re stuck in this cramped little room. And you fucking  _ know _ Dad doesn’t want to see him, so don’t even mention it.” He whispers to Luther, who scowls at him.

He stands up, towering over Diego. Still, he meets Luther’s gaze, his eyes aflame. His hand shoots down to the blade in his belt, wrapping his fingers around the handle. Everyone has backed up, giving them space. Grace looks terrified, and Allison, who Luther can see over Diego’s shoulder, looks like she’s going to charge him and throw him to the ground. Still, he continues to stand on the hill, planning to die on it before he bows to them.

“Why can’t he? Does he not want to? Or are you guys keeping him and wasting money for him to sit in here and watch cartoons like a fucking kid?” He gestures at the TV, the sound of Mr. Rogers’s voice muffled behind Luther’s. Klaus just stares blankly at his massive brother, something brewing behind his eyes. “See? He’s probably not even traumatised. How are you so fucking sure that he didn’t just lie about this because he wanted to waste our time and get our sympathy?”

“Why would he lie? What does he have to gain?” Vanya butts in, but there’s a contained fury slipping through. Her hands ball up into fists.

Diego grimaces up at Luther, and the tension in the room could only be cut with diamonds. “Care to answer her, Luther?”

He sighs, rolling his eyes. If he wanted, he could throw Diego across the room, just to get the idea across that he’s fucking sick of this melodramatic bullshit. “Fine. You’re the one who was talking about Klaus being arrested for prostitution. How are you so fucking sure he just got fucked by two guys, and decided he didn’t like it, so he claimed he got raped? Because, let’s be real, it’s fucking unlikely he was raped.”

There’s a brief moment of silence. The eye of the storm.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Five is the first to speak, and while Grace would normally tell him not to swear, she’s just as disgusted as he is. “Seriously, man, why would you say that right to his face?”

“I know you didn’t know this, but there’s more than enough evidence that he’s not lying. I watched as much of the process as I could fucking stomach, and holy shit, no one who was lying would go through something as violating as that.” Diego swallows, and backs off of Luther. No one speaks while Klaus walks up to Luther.

* * *

 

His heart is racing in his chest as he walks up to Luther. Klaus expected this is how their “reunion” would go, but he really hoped his fears would be proven moot. He can’t bring himself to do what he truly wants to, which is beat Luther’s face to a bloody pulp, he just doesn’t have the energy to even shove him. Klaus stands with two feet between them, sniffling gently.

“Can you please leave?” He begs, and it makes Luther laugh. Though, a small smirk plays on Klaus’s face. “Because if you do now, you won’t be walking out with your teeth kicked in.”

A smile flashes across Ben’s face, and it brings a bit of light back to Klaus’s eyes. Diego comes up behind Klaus, a shit-eating grin on his face. “You know he means it.”

Luther scoffs, and makes his way to the door, stopping to look back at all of them. “Kiss your inheritance goodbye, then. Oh, wait, Dad wrote you out of the will when you abandoned us. You think we forgot that?”

The door slams closed behind him. Klaus stands still for a moment, and decides that yes, Luther won. No matter how much he doesn’t want to admit it, Luther won. He asks where the bathroom is, and he shuffles away, leaving his remaining siblings and mom to try and process what just happened.

He locks himself in a stall, sitting on the floor with his knees brought up to his chest. He buries his face in his knees, his breath jerking in and out of his lungs. Klaus can only remember how sick he felt when he was standing in the private bathroom earlier, totally naked, and staring at himself in the mirror. His eyeliner was almost completely faded, black tracks marked his cheeks, and his stubble was a week overgrown. He ran his fingers up his ribs, jutting out beneath his skin and casting faint shadows between each bone. He tried to look past the scars, all the result of a bad night made worse because he had access to something sharp. In that moment, every part of his body disgusted him. Klaus couldn’t find one part of himself that didn’t make his stomach twist up into a tight knot. 

He glanced over at the clothes neatly folded on the countertop in front of him, an orange tee shirt that, were he in a better mood, he’d absolutely love, and sweatpants that were about three sizes too big for him. He could fit both of his legs into one of the pant legs. He tied the sweatpants into three knots, just to keep them from falling off of his bony hips. And then Klaus was in the soft room, gazing past the TV and praying that he’d be released soon.

For a brief moment, when just Allison, Vanya, Ben, Diego, Mom, and Five were there, he was happy. He wasn’t planning what he’d do the second he was freed from the station, he was actually considering getting his life back on track so he could be in their lives again, to stop causing them pain. To stop causing himself pain.

But now? He’s wishing he was killed. That’s what he deserves.

Klaus wonders if he could sneak out. Sure, he has no idea exactly what he’ll do, but he’s certain that it’s worth an attempt. Because if it works, dear god he’ll never cause any more drama for his family again. And if he does it properly, they’ll just assume he ran away again, and he managed to hide better this time. Klaus would fade into the back of their minds, then completely disappear. He would just be remembered once in a while, but not really thought about. 

He wanders back to the soft room, after having spent ten minutes wiping his tears away and making it look like he hadn’t been crying. Klaus stands a short distance away from it, out of sight, and occasionally looks over, observing his family chatting. It just proves that he only serves to complicate things.

“Hey, Klaus.” Patch startles him, the sincere look on her face also confusing him. “I printed out some resources, if you want them.”

She hands him a stapled list of websites and organizations in both Manhattan and Brooklyn dedicated to victims of sexual assault, with brief blurbs about what each of them are for. Klaus looks it over, then smiles at her. It’s a warm expression, one that he does fully mean. “Thank you very much, Detective.”

Patch nods, then walks away, without so much as another word. Klaus folds up the pages and shoves them into the waistband of his boxers. He would look into them if he had a computer, and he’s not exactly intending on going home with any of his siblings after the absolute shitshow that was Luther’s outburst. But, when he walks back into the room, Vanya approaches him immediately.

“Would you like to stay with me for a bit? I mean, I have an air mattress. And Ben’ll give you a job at the bookshop if you want it.” She offers, and Klaus is a bit startled. He looks between them, and thinks about it for a moment. On one hand, it’s only going to take one more bad thing for Klaus to kill himself, and he doesn’t want his family around when that happens. But on the other, he desperately wants to find someone that will be a constant in his life, save for Bucky and the divorc ée. And hey, he wouldn’t mind reacquainting himself with his family via Vanya and Ben.

He breathes, nodding slowly, languidly. “I’d love to.”


	4. Family Bonding, Fourteen Years Later

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> trigger warning for references to self harm

Klaus and Vanya have been inflating her air mattress for the past twenty minutes. They’re only doing this now because the first week Klaus had been staying with her, Vanya misplaced her air mattress, and had to clean out her closet looking for it. Inevitably, she lost the air pump years ago on a camping trip, and she hadn’t bothered to get a new one since. Vanya and Klaus take turns heaving all the air from their lungs into the air spout, they’re both red-faced and exhausted in moments. Klaus hunches over himself, trying to level his breathing before going back in. Vanya watches Klaus puff into the air mattress, and she’s utterly disappointed when it doesn’t even budge.

“Maybe Ben has an air pump. I’m so light-headed I’m about to pass out.” She stands up, steadying herself on the wall next to her landline phone (which hasn’t worked in three years now). Vanya pulls her phone out of her pocket and checks the time. It’s only six, maybe she can convince Klaus to accompany her to the bookshop down the block. She’s too nervous to wander out at night by herself, and she forgot her pepper spray keychain on the bus a few days ago. When she looks down at him, he’s collapsed back onto the air mattress, rendering all of their work pointless.

The light is starting to come back into his eyes, but he still looks shaken, like one wrong move or word will stun him back into silence. She glances back to her phone, and calls Ben. He picks up almost instantly, greeting Vanya with a tired voice.

“Hey, what’s up?” She leans against the wall, folding her free arm over her stomach. On the other end of the line, she can hear Ben playing “Gloria” by Laura Branigan. She smiles inwardly. “Trying to make the eighties hip again?”

Ben blows raspberry. “If only I’d thought of that before _Stranger Things_ came out.”

Vanya looks up at the ceiling, counting the cracks and water stains. “ _Shit,_ yeah.”

“So, what’re you calling me about, sis?” Only Ben could get away with unironically using the word “sis.”

Vanya catches Klaus moving out of the corner of her eye, he gets up and retrieves his cup of water from the kitchenette. He uncomfortably hops up onto the counter, hissing as he sits down. Vanya smiles at him, which brings some life back to his face. It grounds him, reminding him that he’s surrounded by love and support now, and she, along with the majority of their family, plan to not let him disappear again.

“Oh, I was wondering if you had an air pump. I didn’t even think about if I had one when I offered the air mattress.” She raises her arm in exasperation, and throws it back down, hitting her thigh.

Ben shuffles around on the other end of the line, like he’s going upstairs. “I think I have a bike pump, do you think that’ll work?” He continues shuffling and rustling things around, Vanya pulls the phone away from her ear for a second.

“Do you wanna walk down to the bookshop with me?” She asks Klaus, who nods quickly.

“I mean, if you think I’m a good enough bodyguard.” He smiles faintly, and the look fades from his face just as fast as it came. He brings himself down from the counter, and Vanya holds out a finger, putting the phone back up to her face.

“Hey, I found the bike pump!” Ben announces, and Vanya pulls her lips into a straight smile.

Klaus pulls on one of Vanya’s coats, a black puffer jacket that looks absolutely dashing with his bright orange flaming skull shirt and sweatpants. He hasn’t had a coat in a long time, he remembers stealing one from an ex and quickly losing it in a trade with his dealer. It was a Matrix-style trench coat, and he loved it for the short while he had it. He’s debating stealing this one from Vanya, since she made a disgusted face at it when she pulled it out of her closet.

“We’ll see you in ten. Bye.” She hangs up after Ben says the same to her, and they’re off to retrieve the bike pump.

* * *

A few days ago, Dave heard the news. He wandered down to the temple after work, hoping to just pop in, maybe see Klaus lazing on the same pew as last night, and admire that easy-going smirk on his face for much too long. When he crossed the street and planted his feet on the corner, he looked up and his jaw metaphorically dropped. Two cop cars were sitting on the curb, their sirens thankfully turned off. A female detective was standing against one of them, chatting through a police radio. Dave tried to walk up to the entrance of the synagogue, but she reached out her hand.

“Hey, step back!” Her voice was very stern, but when he turned around, she softened up a bit. “Sorry. The temple’s been labeled a crime scene.”

Dave furrowed his brow, glancing back up at the synagogue. He’d practically been raised there, he used to come here after school twice a week to talk to Rabbi Blum. How could a crime happen here? _What kind of crime happened here?_

“Are you allowed to say what happened?” He tried to mask his concern, but it came out full-force.

She looked over to the car behind hers, then to the front of the synagogue. When she glanced back at Dave, he knew it wasn’t just a breaking-and-entering case. It had to be something bigger.

“There was a sexual assault here last night. Would you happen to know anything about the case?” She took out her notepad, hoping he could say something about what happened. Granted, she didn’t think there was much else that could help with the case, but it was worth asking him anyway.

Dave’s eyes widened and he shook his head. “No. I heard nothing about it. But I was here last night.” He rubbed the back of his neck, genuinely upset that he basically allowed it to happen.

The detective cocked an eyebrow. “Really? What time did you leave?”

“Around 11:49. I live down the street, and I checked my watch when I was at my apartment, so it was probably around 11:46 that I actually left the temple.” He watched her scribble that down into her notepad. “Did someone break in? I locked the doors when I left, was there any sign of breaking and entering?”

She shook her head, still writing. “No. The assailants were already inside the temple when you left. Could you have anyone attest to your whereabouts at the time of the crime?”

Dave felt himself tense up. Did she really think he had something to do with it? He couldn’t even process the idea that anyone in the temple did that, let alone two of them attacked someone. Dave felt so ashamed that he played a part in it happening.

“Any of the guys in there could tell you I left and didn’t come back during the night.” He started naming off a few of the guys. “Barry, Jim, Tom, and I don’t know if you could even track him down, but a guy named Klaus could say that, too.”

A grim look crossed her face. She stopped scribbling on her notepad.

Dave shook his head. “No. He wasn’t involved, was he?”

The detective sighed, and nodded.

“I’ll ask Klaus if he can attest to your alibi. What’s your name?”

“Dave Katz. Tell him I’m sorry about what happened, please.” He watched her continue to write, before she stopped.

“I forgot to ask. Why were you at the temple last night?” Her cool demeanour faded momentarily, and he felt less tense for a second.

He was still thinking about Klaus. He could have never guessed that anything would have happened to Klaus, not on his watch. Well, not quite on his watch. But, no one at temple had thought they needed to monitor who they took in. “I volunteered here last night.”

She nodded again, and put the notepad away. “Thank you for your cooperation, Mr. Katz.”

“Of course. Do you know when the temple will be open again?”

She exhaled slowly, like she was trying to make an estimate. “In less than a week, I’m assuming.”

Dave nodded, and turned right back around, walking back to his apartment. He lied on his couch for a while, putting _Schitt’s Creek_ on in the background while Angel lies on his stomach, purring and slow-blinking at him. He repeated the gesture at her, reading somewhere that that was how cats expressed love and trust. Dave fell asleep at some point, Angel rolled over onto her back, the TV buzzing quietly in the background.

* * *

Ben is standing at his computer, scrolling through a one-hit-wonders playlist on Spotify and attempting to find a half-decent song to play in the store. At the very least, a half-decent song he could dance to. He lands on “Shake It” by Metro Station, and bounces behind the counter, looking out the windows, hoping Vanya shows up soon.

He remembers a time when he had a midnight release party for some YA book, and how he closed the store up at three am, shimmying to “Party All the Time” and removing all of the dollar store garlands that took him an hour to hang. He barely even had to pull on them, they sort of crumbled into dust, à la Spider-Man in _Infinity War_. The night ended with him lying in his bathtub, mumbling the lyrics to “Party All the Time” and drinking one of those wine juice boxes with a rooster on the front.

Now, he’s dancing around with the broom, loudly singing along to “Shake It” and shaking his hips to match the beat of the song. Ben doesn’t even hear the bell above the door ring, and he doesn’t notice anyone walk into the store. Though, it’s on-brand for the store that Ben is dancing around, screaming at the top of his lungs and dancing with cleaning apparati. That’s what led to the store being minorly famous on social media, just the clips of Ben dancing around and acting like a fool.

Ben eventually turns on the balls of his feet, finding Vanya and Klaus huddled up in winter coats, their noses red from the walk. He pulls the remote to the store’s sound system and turns the music down, gesturing for them to follow him. Ben drops the broom somewhere in the process, he’s just sure that once he’s up the stairs, he doesn’t have his broom anymore.

Ben’s apartment is a little cramped, but it’s cramped with little knick-knacks and weird shit he found at thrift stores or on Amazon. For instance, the Jeff Goldblum and monkey shower curtain he used as a normal curtain (he bought two just so he could let the sun in, and promptly deemed them Jeff Goldone and Jeff Goldtwom). Beside his microwave, a two-years outdated “Goats in Trees” calendar. He has three horse masks hung on his wall like stuffed animal head trophies, accompanied by some old, defaced My Little Ponies, given anarchist makeovers (one of which was customised into a Communist pony) sitting on a shelf beneath the masks. Vanya was called up the day he found those ponies at Goodwill, and helped him arrange them properly. From there, his obsession with bizarre novelty items grew.

For instance, three mini Danny Devito cardboard cutouts, which defended each door in Ben’s apartment. Claire had visited once, and made construction paper armour for each Devito. They looked like Roman gladiators when she was done with them.

“Metro Station?” Vanya smirks, and Ben scoffs.

“‘Shake It’ is a masterpiece, and you know it.” He hands her the bike pump, barely-used. Surprising, considering that Ben’s main mode of transportation is his bike. “You don’t need to bring it back, either. I’ve got great lung capacity.”

Vanya shoves him with the bike pump, chuckling. She turns back, noticing that Klaus has already disappeared. Or maybe he never came upstairs to begin with. Though, she didn’t hear the bell, she’s certain he didn’t leave. She turns back to Ben, opting to visit with him now. The past few days have been fairly chaotic, getting Klaus adjusted to living with her, and trying to get him to act like himself again. But, all the work will be worth it in the end. Hopefully.

* * *

Klaus is thumbing through some books in the horror section, picking up ones with gory titles and dark imagery on the covers. He flips through one about vampires, but quickly puts it back, reading over a passage that sent goosebumps over his body. He doesn’t even need to be reminded that he has a body right now.

“Bloody hell,” he murmurs to himself, moving over to the romance/erotica section (confusingly, on the left of the horror section).

He pulls out one of those checkstand romance novels, with a knockoff Fabio on the cover, and a tastefully busty heroine with hair to match Notbio’s. The back of it reads like every other cliché romance novel, Klaus guesses that if they had a grandmother, she’d read books like this. But dear old Dad’s mom already passed, and Mom was raised by her dad alone. Though, he never got involved in their lives. He was scammed out of having grandparents who showered him with money and called him a ‘handsome young man.’

Klaus puts the book away, finding another one. After some intense searching, he finds one that calls to him, one that seems so obscenely wrong that it only could have come from his mind. _Cum for Bigfoot_.

Something about the title, the dumb cover, the fact that he found _Bigfoot erotica,_ it makes him feel like himself again, if only for a brief moment. He’s felt so suicidal and disgusted with himself recently, showering in boiling hot water to get violation off of his body, to burn off any mark left by the assault. He took scissors from Vanya’s cupboard one night and scratched up his already-scarred arm, staring blankly into his palm while he did it. He read the phrase “good bye” over and over again in his head, he lost track of what he was doing and thinking. When he was done, he had fairly deep marks dug into his forearm. Vanya found him lying on his stomach on her couch, with toilet paper wrapped around his arm. She left him rubbing alcohol, Neosporin, and a variety of bandages for him to fix himself up with. When she came back from the CVS on the next block, Klaus had put butterfly bandages on all of his deep cuts, then covered them with an ace bandage to deter him from doing it again (when Klaus later woke up, he claimed it was because it reminded him of The Mummies).

But, this stupid book makes him so unreasonably happy. He goes over to the stairs leading up to Ben’s apartment, calling up to him. “ _Beeeen?_ How much is the Bigfoot erotica?” Klaus flips the book over while he waits for Ben to respond, reading the synopsis on the back. God, it sounds absolutely terrible and Klaus wants it.

Behind him, the bell to the front door rings. Klaus briefly looks over his shoulder and his eyes are caught by the person who just entered the store.

_No fucking way._

“Klaus?” Dave smiles, approaching him. “Hey, hi! How are you doing?”

Klaus smiles back at him, his heart dances around in his chest. Right now, it’s like a sped-up waltz. “I’m horrible, how are you?”

“Dunno. I think I’m fine.” He chuckles awkwardly, shrugging. “I’m really sorry about what happened. If you ever need anything, want someone to talk to, I’m here, alright?”

He nods at Dave, the smallest, sweetest smile on his face.

“Of course.” He tries to shake out of his daze, but it’s not quite working. He clears his throat, and looks back up at Dave. “What’re you doing here? Looking for book recommendations?”

Klaus holds up _Cum for Bigfoot_ and Dave’s eyes go wide. He takes it from Klaus and looks it over.

“You’re joking. Is Virginia Wade your pen name?” Dave grins, and Klaus watches him cover his mouth with his hand. He can see the massive grin forming behind his hand. Klaus wishes he’d uncover it, he wanted to see that undoubtedly amazing smile. When Dave looks back at Klaus, his eyes are sparkling. “This sounds horrendous. I think you and this book were made for each other.”

Klaus throws his head back, laughing like a maniac. Upstairs, Ben and Vanya are terrified to hear Klaus laughing like that. They look down the stairs, seeing Klaus talking to a guy that Vanya doesn’t recognise. However, Ben does.

He doesn’t go down to interrupt the scene. Instead, he and Vanya listen to Klaus chattering with Dave.

“I didn’t take you for an avid reader.” He hands the book back to Klaus, who shrugs.

“You guessed right. I just came with my sister to pick up a bike pump.” He tucks the book under his arm.

Dave doesn’t even think to question what kind of book shop would sell air pumps, instead he gets caught up staring at Klaus. He only notices now that his eyes are green, like the moss that grew up the side of his childhood home. He’s wearing fresh rings of eyeliner, intentionally smudged and only serving to brighten his eyes. Dave has seen men wearing makeup before, but somehow it’s different on Klaus. He doesn’t look like the kind of person who wakes up every morning and applies a thick coat of eyeliner. On the contrary, he looks like he wakes up with raccoon eyes, perpetually creased where his eyelids rub together.

Klaus smiles at Dave, waiting for him to finally say something. Sure, he appreciates the staring, but Dave should guess that he isn’t interested right now. A few nights ago, he would have been, dear God he would have been making a point to tell Dave that he wanted to go home with him. But now he’s disgusted by the thought of touching his own body, let alone someone else touching him. “Ahem, _Davie?_ ”

Dave shakes out of his trance. “Shit, sorry. You probably don’t want me staring.”

“If I wasn’t feeling so shit, I’d appreciate it.” He glances over to the counter, seeing a Sharpie lying beside Ben’s computer. “In fact—”

Klaus cuts himself off and goes to collect the Sharpie. He hands it to Dave, and holds out the back of his hand. “You wouldn’t mind giving me your number, would you?”

“You’re sure?” Dave raises an eyebrow. He taps the Sharpie against his chin.

“It’s either talking with you or another _The L Word_ marathon with my sister.” Though, Klaus does kind of enjoy _The L Word._ Keyword _kind of._ But it’s basically Vanya’s only access to other lesbians, so he reads the wiki page for the show and talks about storylines with her, just to make her happy. Though, he has to work way too hard to talk her out of getting a Shane-esque haircut, her reasoning being that it’ll signal other lesbians to her. Klaus told her to just try going to the girl bar downtown, maybe donning a full-flannel outfit just to quash any possible ambiguity.

Dave has already written his area code and the first three digits after that, doing his best to not touch Klaus (he feels bad doing this, but he also doesn’t want to trigger him in any way). He steadies his arm for Dave, who finishes up the number and smiles at him. “So, you’re living with your sister now?”

“Yeah. I think she’s visiting with my brother now.” He gestures up the stairs with his freshly-Sharpied hand. Dave peers up the stairs, not seeing anybody.

“Does he live above the bookshop?” He catches stark black marks on Klaus’s palm, somehow not realising that he had tattoos there until now. He can only make out “HE,” he’s moving his hand too fast for Dave to read it.

Klaus nods. “Owns it, too.”

“No way. Ben’s your brother?” Dave has been coming to this bookshop for about a year, he never would have guessed that Ben had siblings, let alone two of them. “Do you get a discount?”

“If I had any money to buy a book, maybe.” Klaus smiles faintly at Dave, some sparks rise up in his chest at that look.

Upstairs, Ben and Vanya are baffled by how Klaus is reacting to Dave. Hell, Klaus is baffled by Dave and how he reacts to him. He hasn’t felt like this since he last talked to Dave over a week ago. And before then, when one of his flings offered to let him crash at their place for a little while. It makes him feel so nice, to actually feel a bit happy again. Granted, it could be a fluke. Or Dave could end up being an asshat who just wants Klaus as a fuck buddy. But he’s nagging at himself, telling himself that there’s just no way Dave could be like that. That he seems to be a genuine person.

“Well, I have to get going. It was nice seeing you again, Klaus.” Dave doesn’t want to get going, but he caught a glance at his watch, and he still wants to take a shower before he goes to bed.

“Maybe one day I’ll be the one who has to get going.” He smiles at Dave, his eyes are sparkling. Genuinely, Dave didn’t know that eyes could shimmer like that. They’re like rays of sunlight hitting sea green ripples. He feels like he’s trapped under some kind of spell. Maybe Klaus is a witch. That would explain the glittering.

“Call me tomorrow, if you can.” Dave’s feet refuse to move, he won’t let himself turn around and walk to the door. “Goodnight, Klaus.”

“Goodnight, Davie.” He grins, looking just a touch cocky. Dave feels like his face is giving away everything, yet that doesn’t seem to deter Klaus. He can finally turn around, he walks out the door and into the night, fading away in no time.

For the rest of the night, Klaus is able to keep his horrible thoughts at bay. He lies on the fully-inflated air mattress, reading a graciously donated _Cum for Bigfoot,_ and listening to Vanya practice her violin in her bedroom. It’s the first good night he’s had in a week. He’ll have to thank Dave for that.


	5. Zoo Time Fun Time

Grace gets the call at about 8 am on Saturday. She just finished cleaning up from breakfast and she took a bit of relaxation time for herself to listen to an audiobook about classic art in her bedroom. She had closed her eyes at some point, started to drift off with a very sophisticated English accent explaining the hallmarks of expressionism to her. Though, she was quickly awoken by her phone’s bubbly notification tone, very displeased to be taken away from her nap so quickly.

When she finds that it’s Allison calling her, she’s utterly ecstatic. She answers the call, sitting up and pausing the audiobook. “Hello! How has your morning been, Allison?”

In the background, she can hear Claire padding around the apartment, probably in the little yellow rain boots she got her for Christmas last year. She refused to wear anything else, so Uncle Luther got her little rubber grips to prevent her from slipping and falling face-first. She’s yelling about not being able to find her duckie umbrella.

“A lot,” Allison sighs, but she doesn’t sound so much upset as mildly exasperated. “My Keurig’s on the fritz, so I’m still not _awake,_ exactly.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, dear. If you’re going to pass by, I’ll get you a cup of coffee.” Her voice is warm, just like the coffee that Allison hadn’t yet had.

She stands up, deciding that even if she’s not going to be in the neighbourhood, she’ll go and deliver coffee to Allison. Grace passes by Five’s room, finding him still asleep. She’ll make him a cup, too.

“Actually, I was going to ask you if you wanted to come to the zoo with Claire, Vanya, and I. Maybe you could bring Five?” She yawns, and Grace smiles to herself.

“I’d love to. I’ll ask Five if he wants to go. He’s still asleep, poor little guy.” She strides down the stairs, her circle skirt spinning around her calves as she makes her way back to the kitchen. Outside, the snow from last night has turned to slush.

“Call me back if he decides to go, alright? We’re gonna go at 9:30 or 10.” She and Grace say their goodbyes and she hangs up, walking over to the window to watch the snow melt for just a second.

She’s particularly excited for Christmas this year, she loves when the kids come over and help her decorate the living room (or ‘sitting room,’ what Reginald liked to call it) with garlands and tinsel. Luther always gets the tree, they’d always be around thirteen feet and would be promptly strewn in gold and red decor. Grace would bring out her snowman collection, placing them all around the house to add that bit of holiday cheer. and now that everyone has reunited, she hopes the whole family can gather together for the holidays. For the first time since they were all young.

Grace starts boiling some water for the French press and collects the coffee beans from the cupboard, throwing them into the press. She stands with her nose stuck in the bag of coffee beans, inhaling deeply. If Reginald wasn’t so particular about scents, she’d gladly make the entire house smell like fresh coffee.

Her lips curl into a pleasant smile and she sets the bag down, checking on the pan of water. Thankfully, it hasn’t boiled over yet.

Upstairs she hears footsteps, two different sets walking around. She immediately places them as Pogo and Five, who has finally woken up. Pogo is likely attending to Reginald, who has stopped allowing Grace to visit him. He says it’s for the better, otherwise Reginald would curse her out for trying to speak to him. Pogo would watch her tear up because she couldn’t visit her own husband, but still deny her access to his bedroom.

Grace glances over at the pan of boiling water, picking it up and pouring half of it over top of the coffee beans. She lets it bloom, then pours the rest of the water into the press and sets the lid on top, setting the pan down into the sink to cool before she washes it. Grace listens for Five to come down the stairs, pulling out a few of her ceramic travel mugs.

In no time, Five has spilled downstairs and is pouring himself one of the travel mugs of coffee. Grace is a little surprised he’s using it, but sometimes he’ll use those instead of a regular mug so he can safely take it back upstairs. However, he’s also fully dressed.

“I heard you talking with Allison. I guess I’ll go to the zoo with you.” He warms his hands on the ceramic mug. Grace grins, filling the other two mugs and going to find her coat.

“I’m so glad you’re coming with us. Your dad would be so happy to see you bonding with your siblings.” She gets Five’s coat from the closet, along with her own. Five pulls his coat on, the smaller, black version of her own. However, while Five’s reaches to his waist, Grace’s coat reaches to her knees.

He groans gently. “Did he tell you that?”

Grace grimaces faintly. She looks up the stairs, down the hallway that Reginald’s room is situated in. Five has been upset with him since he turned ten, and he didn’t even come to Five’s birthday. Now he’s jaded towards his father, which only serves to upset Grace further.

“No. But I know he’s happy.” She smiles again, which only further serves to make Five grumble to himself.

Grace doesn’t let that deter her. After she calls Allison once again, she takes Five out to the car, and they make their way to Allison’s apartment, where they’ve all planned to meet up. While Five is sitting in the backseat, his nose tucked into a book, Grace brings herself to hum along to the radio and distract her from acknowledging that he’s right about hating Reginald. But he’d never know.

* * *

Vanya has left Klaus at the bookshop, where he’s now helping Ben. He convinced Klaus to help reorganise the books in exchange for a twenty, which he’s not opposed to. In fact, he gladly took the offer and has been organising the science fiction books for the past twenty minutes.

And now, Ben has taken to interrogating Klaus about Dave.

“So you met him at the synagogue?” He leans over the counter, watching Klaus mix up two books that he makes note of.

“Yeah. It was incredibly romantic. He found me hiding in one of the bushes and thought I was going to spray anti-Semitic graffiti on the windows.” Klaus isn’t sure whether to move a book that definitely looks like a romance novel over to it’s correct section, but it’s in alphabetical order when he comes to it, so he assumes it’s supposed to be there.

Ben turns the volume up on the sound system, it’s towards the end of “Kyrie,” and Ben can see that the next song to come up on shuffle is “Careless Whisper.” A smirk grows on his face.

“Do you think he’s, you know, single?” Ben shouldn’t be enabling Klaus like this, but it’s just so validating when Klaus gets flustered.

“What does it matter if he isn’t?” He looks back at Ben, a scowl playing in his face. “We’re just friends for now, and if his girlfriend doesn’t like it, who cares?”

Ben cocks an eyebrow. “Hold on, you said he called you ‘pretty.’ What makes you think he’s into women?”

Klaus goes up to the counter, a genuinely angry look on his face. “I don’t know what makes you think that just because he called me ‘pretty’ means he’s automatically gay. He could be bi, he could be pan like me, or he could just be a straight guy who’s comfortable enough in his sexuality to call another man ‘pretty.’” He exhales immediately after, the anger leaving his face. “Sorry. That’s been building up for a while.”

He walks back to the books, and Ben nods, holding his hands up in surrender. “You know, you’re right, Klaus. I’m sorry I jumped to conclusions like that. But, I saw how he was staring at you last night. It makes me think that if he does happen to be straight, he might be interested in you.”

“If he is, that’s too bad.” Klaus sounds a bit defeated saying that. “But, anyway, we’ll be friends. I’m excited to talk to him. I’ve got to update him on _Cum for Bigfoot._ ”

Ben shudders. “Right, I nearly forgot you convinced me to give you that book. I feel like the pros of getting that thing out of my store outweigh the cons.”

Klaus hears the sax intro and starts dancing around the store shittily. Ben watches in awe, wondering if that’s how he looks when he dances. _No,_ he assures himself, _I’m not half as bad as Klaus. Just a quarter._

“I’M NEVER GONNA _DAAANCE_ AGAIN,” Klaus screams, throwing himself against one of the shelves.

“Klaus!” Ben yells at him, grimacing. “You won’t even be able to call Dave if one of those shelves collapses on you.”

Klaus falls to the floor like he’s in a _telenovela,_ hand over his forehead. “Oh, what a shame! He’ll never get to tell me how much he tolerates me!”

He melts onto the floor, sticking his tongue out for full effect. Ben wonders why he’s paying him at all.

* * *

“We’ve found one of the two suspects.” Patch gestures to the holding cell. “We can’t find his accomplice, but Beeman is still looking for him. We’ll likely have them both in custody before next week.”

Diego nods, rubbing his temple. He’s been out of the office for a week, yet he’s still feeling utterly sick of the world. “Good.”

She leaves him to sit by himself, going to the holding cell to talk to the perp.

Diego wishes that he hadn’t gotten involved in this case. More importantly, he wishes it wasn’t Klaus. Though, he doesn’t know that right now Klaus is singing to “Careless Whisper” with Ben. He’s assumed that since the assault, Klaus has been suffering and wishing he was dead. Which, when Klaus is alone, that’s true. He has nothing to distract him from his thoughts when he’s not being constantly entertained by Vanya.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do if the last perp isn’t found. He already feels disgusted that he hasn’t done anything to search for the last assailant. Tonight, he’s going to search for him. It’s not like he has anything else to do.

* * *

Vanya has been hiding out in the bat enclosure, deciding that it’s too cold outside to see the penguins or anything else. She’s been standing against the wall, watching the bats hanging from the ceiling, crawling around, and occasionally flapping around behind the glass. While she’s never been a big fan of bats, she likes watching them scale the ceiling to find a warmer place to sleep. She’s also read the sign about the bats three times.

They’re vampire bats, the sign explains that they solely drink blood, their scientific name is _Desmodontinae,_ and they like tropical and subtropical climates. One of the bats turns to look in her direction for a second, and she smiles at the bat, despite it obviously not realising that she did that.

She looks over at the door leading outside, wondering if anyone is going to come and meet her in the bat enclosure.

Meanwhile, Five is sitting in the zoo’s cafe, still reading his book. Grace is traveling with Allison and Claire, they’re currently stuck at the otters exhibit, watching them swim around in heated water and waddle over to their hide to curl up and go to sleep. Claire has a particularly fast one following her finger, and Allison films it while Grace cheers her on. Claire is giggling like mad, dashing around with her finger sticking out behind her like a sparkler.

Eventually, the otter gets tired and goes to the hide with the others. Claire tries to beckon it back, believing herself to be the Goddess of Sea Otters, but quickly accepts that the otter is done playing with her.

“Do you want to go see the penguins?” Allison holds out her hand and Claire grabs it tightly, dragging her over to the penguin enclosure. Once they get there, they find that Vanya has brought herself to look at them, shivering against the chill. Claire rushes up to her, recounting her amazing sea otter story.

“Mommy videoed it, show Auntie Vanya!” She squeals, her hands gripping Vanya’s arm. Allison hands over her phone and Vanya grins at the sight of Claire disorienting the poor otter.

While they’re all chatting, Grace is watching the penguins slide around, laughing to herself as one spins on its belly down the slide, falling into the water below. She’s rarely ever gone to the zoo, she never had until she was about sixteen. And when she had, she stared much longer at all of the animals than anyone else had. Diego had to drag her away from the lion exhibit, she was practically pressed to the glass admiring them. Reginald scolded her for that, but he decided that it wasn’t a particularly terrible offense. She hadn’t been left alone, after all.

“Mom, we’re gonna go soon. Do you want us to come get Five with you?” Vanya looks half-frozen, her mitten-clad hands are tucked into her pockets and her nose is tomato red.

Grace shakes out of her daze and smiles gently, nodding. “If you don’t mind. Thank you, Vanya.”

She’s glad she got out of that head space when she did. Otherwise, she probably would have started tearing up at Vanya calling her “Mom” instead of “Grace.”

* * *

Klaus is sitting on Ben’s couch when he dials the number still stained on his hand. His hand covers his mouth, anxiety is bubbling in his stomach. He stares at the number for a while before he clicks the ‘call’ button, wondering if he should bother to call Dave.

He hovers his finger over the ‘call’ button and presses it all too firmly, like it’s stuck. While he waits for Dave to pick up, he fidgets, he drums his fingers on his thigh between each ring. Klaus finally figures out that Dave isn’t going to answer on the fourth ring, when it finally goes to voicemail.

“ _Hey, this is Dave. I’m not at my phone right now, so leave a message after the—_ ” He’s interrupted by the beep, Klaus takes a moment to respond. He feels like he has to gather his thoughts for a second before he starts talking. Klaus wom’t also admit that Dave’s voicemail is incredibly cheesy but also very fitting.

“Hi, voicemail Dave.” He’s already wanting to hit himself with the phone. But, he keeps going. “I don’t know if I should ask you to call back or not, since I’m calling you from my burner phone.” Really, this was Ben’s phone. It just felt more pathetic saying that.

“So, I’ll leave you to whatever you’re doing. I’ll call you later. Bye.” He ends the voicemail, now he can hit himself with Ben’s phone.

Thankfully, Ben comes in not long after to stop him and take his phone back. “I’m going to lock you in the stockroom downstairs if you keep stealing my shit.”

“You’re gonna lock me away like some kind of crazed raccoon? Like the brother you don’t talk about because ‘he came out wrong?’” Klaus squirms on the couch to avoid Ben grabbing him and throwing him down into a sea of books and an assortment of spiders.

“So help me Klaus, I’ll get a dog cage.”

Klaus knows Ben’s make good on that promise, but he continues to squirm until Ben starts hitting him with a broom. Then he gives up the phone, losing only his dignity, but it’s not like he had much of that to begin with.

Later that night, Klaus is still trapped at Ben’s bookshop, deciding that he’ll stay with him for the night. Really, Klaus is just too lazy to walk back to Vanya’s apartment. His justification is “it’s a ten minute walk. I might as well just stay over at Ben’s and go home in the morning.”

He’s been lying on the couch, stretching his legs out like an exhausted cat. He yawns just the same, dangling his legs over the arm of the couch. Ben ordered pizza over the phone about fifteen minutes ago, and Klaus is wondering if it’s truly worth waiting when Ben has a couple of boxes of mostly-empty, stale cereal that he can mix together into something vaguely edible. But he waits. He hasn’t had pizza in months, he can’t even remember what kind of pizza he had last, if it was a slice of veggie from his ex’s fridge or a mostly-eaten pepperoni slice that had been thrown at him at a house party. He just remembers that he’d dream about pizza every now and again for five months. And now, he’s going to have pepperoni and black olive, Ben’s favourite. Klaus hates olives, but he’s still stuck in the mentality that he has to eat whatever he’s offered so he doesn’t starve.

“I have Parmesan cheese packets, the dry stuff, I have pepper, and I have some ranch. Just please use napkins and don’t wipe your hands on my couch. I just got that thing and I’m going to go into a blind rage if you ruin it with your greasy little paws.” Ben really does just picture Klaus as an oversized raccoon. It doesn’t help that he scuttles around in dumpsters for trash, gathering as much as his grubby little hands can carry over to the local pawn shop. And he’d be lying if he said Klaus didn’t chitter a little bit.

“Great!” Klaus rubs his hands all over the couch, moaning and inaudibly remarking on how soft it is. “You’re going to look beautiful with ranch stains.”

While Ben is picking at a hangnail, his phone starts buzzing. He picks it up, not recognising the number.

“Is this your dealer?” Ben hands the phone to Klaus, who immediately answers the call and holds the phone to his face, a giddy look on his face.

“Hey, I got your voicemail. You sound really cute over the phone,” Dave teases him, which makes Klaus go half-rabid.

He laughs casually. “I could have been one of those cute little anime schoolgirls, but alas, my voice acting career was never meant to be.” He hunches over himself, his free hand wrapping around his knees.

“I hate how I sound over the phone.” Dave sounds a bit tired, but he’s not going to go to bed until he’s actually talked with Klaus. He beat himself up over missing Klaus’s call earlier, so he’s going to make up for it now. “I always sound tired and congested, something like that.”

“I like how you sound. You kinda sound like my dad. In a good way, I mean. Like, you’re not screaming at me and telling me for the thirtieth time that ‘Klaus, stop wearing Grace’s heels and running down the stairs, do you _want_ to break your jaw again?’” Klaus laughs, giving Dave permission to chuckle softly, uncomfortably, in response.

“Personally, I feel like I sound like my dad. You know, after he hit the bottle and decided that he should take me on a drive through our old neighbourhood. I still have nightmares that the next morning Mom would find the car flipped and totaled, and Dad would just slip out unharmed.” Dave feels bad airing his personal issues with Klaus, but it just felt natural to tell him about this stuff. If Klaus told him to stop, or to change the topic, he’d listen, they’d chat about Bigfoot porn and how Dave had to clean a week’s worth of graffiti off of his temple earlier. God works hard, but the Neo-Nazis seem to work even harder to make everyone attending the synagogue feel unwelcome and scared for their lives.

“Can’t be a coincidence that we both have daddy issues, right? Maybe that’s what brought us together.” Klaus chuckles briefly.

Dave thinks about it. Really, it just makes him tear up a bit. Acknowledging that he and Klaus both had awful upbringings, but they both managed to turn out okay. Well, he couldn’t say that he was exactly okay, but he believed Klaus to be a well-adjusted person. And Klaus felt the exact opposite of Dave; he thought himself to be a hopeless wreck and Dave to be a perfect, stable person who had made an unfortunate mistake involving himself with Klaus.

“Please tell me you aren’t going to start calling him ‘Daddy.’” Ben begs in the background, which makes Dave smile.

Klaus spins around to look at Ben, a befuddled look on his face. “I don’t know.” He turns back to the phone, devious smirk growing on his face. “Whataya think, _Daddy?”_

Ben leaves the room, faking a symphony of gags. Dave is cackling on the other end of the phone, the line erupts with stomach-gripping laughter. Klaus lies back, stretching one arm over his head. He closes his eyes briefly, letting Dave finish laughing while he listens. It’s a really nice laugh, but he doesn’t know what makes a laugh good or bad.

“You’re still there, Klaus?” Dave’s voice is suddenly drowned out by rumbling.

“Are you driving? _Dave,_ you absolute madman!” Klaus giggles, but Dave comes in through the rumbling, sounding very defensive.

“No no, of course not. That’s my cat.” He tries to get her to meow in the phone, which she refuses. “Well, anyway, she says ‘hi.’”

Klaus hangs up once the pizza arrives about forty-five minutes later. However, once Ben goes to sleep, Klaus feels lonely. He goes down to the shop, browsing through the books and trying to find something to distract him. Truthfully, he can’t find anything. He hopes in vain that maybe something will stick out and he’ll be able to keep himself out of his head for a little bit.

Nope.

He searches through Ben’s bathroom, finding some pill bottles on a shelf next to his sink and filing through them. He takes two pills out of each bottle, then takes his haul to the couch. He takes them dry, swallowing them down like oversized pebbles. Klaus then goes to the fridge and takes one of the slices of leftover pizza, taking one bite and dropping to the ground, scarfing it down like he hasn’t already eaten five slices that night.

“This is good.” He says to himself, all while his heart is beginning to pound in his chest. “This is fine.”

After an hour of waiting for the pills to kick in, a wave of numbness washes over him. _There we go._

And just like that, there goes his unspoken promise to stay sober for his family once his remaining stash ran out. Though, he made that promise before, when he was a thirteen-year-old stoner. That’s what led him to becoming the junkie rat he is today.

But at the very least, right now, he’s _fine,_ he’s numb, he can wake up in the morning and deal with his problems then, but right now he can tolerate being alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m going to be out of town on friday and saturday, so if i don’t get any new chapters posted until saturday night/sunday, just know that i’m afk~ 💕


	6. It Just Rains Because It Can

Dave arrives at the bookshop, eager to find Klaus and have a quick chat before he makes his way to the recently reopened synagogue. He plans for this stop to be the highlight of his night, since he’s already been called by Rabbi Blum and his son Aaron about the layers of graffiti so they can begin decorating for the holiday season. Spending one of the coldest nights in November scrubbing Neo-Nazi bullshit off of the siding without stripping any of the paint underneath somehow doesn’t sound appealing to him. He perks up once he crosses the street, reaching the bookshop’s block. 

Ben is outside the shop, hanging a string of oversized white lights over the shop’s sign. Klaus is below him, holding the ladder and staring out onto the street, watching people and cars pass by. He’s seen three yellow VW Bugs drift down the road and in his numb little brain he’s certain that there’s a yellow Bug convention that they’re all attending. He looks back at the sidewalk and finds that a tall stalk of blond hair is quickly approaching the shop, but they’re trying to appear casual about how fast they’re going.

Dave is a little confused by how Klaus’s face stays blank when he reaches him. In the few times he’s talked to Klaus in person, he’s become used to how Klaus lights up when he sees him. Though, all of that is probably a fluke. He’s only talked to Klaus in person twice, and about three over the phone, so it’s very possible that he just caught him on a handful of good days.

Still, he smiles at Klaus, his teeth chattering uncontrollably. “You’re not cold?” He tips his head down and back up at Klaus’s outfit—a cropped tank top, an unzipped puffer jacket, and jeans that laced up the sides.

“I’m actually really hot.” He tries to shrug his jacket off of his shoulders without letting go of the ladder, but only shakes Ben a bit.

“When is Vanya taking you back?” Ben grumbles, hammering a nail between the wires, then putting Flex Tape over top (bought as a joke to add to Ben’s prototype Phil Swift shrine, but quickly revered as some pretty nice tape).

Klaus leans on the ladder, putting all of his weight into it. “So, why’d you come to see me?” His shoulder is popping out from underneath the jacket, and goosebumps are already forming on his exposed skin. “You’re not here to help us with the decorating, I’m guessing.”

“Well, I can appreciate that it’s non-denominational decor. Unless you have twenty Santa Clause’s shoving menorahs up their asses set up inside.” Dave shrugs, and Klaus giggles. He expected howling laughter, but this is enough. Even if Klaus’s eyes are utterly glased over.

“No, but we’re starting on those later.” Klaus’s eyes are locked on Dave, but there’s none of the emotion behind them. He feels like he’s in the centre of _Invasion of the Body Snatchers,_ and at any second Klaus is going to jab his finger at Dave and wail. But, another part of him recognises what is wrong with Klaus.

He tries to tell himself he isn’t disappointed, because he isn’t, he has no right to be disappointed with Klaus. But he’s just as spacey and nearly-adjacent-yet-so-far-off from himself that Dave realises he’s either slobbering drunk or high. His breath hitches and his lip quivers into a millisecond-long frown.

It figures he falls for someone just like his dad. But, Klaus isn’t like Dad. Klaus is still bright, he’s beaming and fiery and so much more. Dad was so far gone he just sat and drank, he didn’t retain any of himself. He was so far gone he was just a shell. Dave worries about Klaus becoming a husk of his former self sometimes, when he’s ran out of memories about Dad, or has come full circle with some depressing spiral about graduation night and how he cried himself to sleep while Dad drank himself to sleep in the other room. But Dave is certain that Klaus is still a ways away from that road.

“Well, I actually have to get going. I’ll talk to you later, Klaus.” Dave gives him a gentle smile, and Klaus mimics the look.

He keeps his head down while he walks about seven blocks to the synagogue. His hands are stuck deep in his pockets, his mind is racing and he can’t even focus on the beat of his walking. Instead, Dave worries. If there’s one thing he’s good at doing by himself, it’s worry. He’s great at worrying about other people when he’s utterly certain that no one worries about him in the same way. But that’s part of being a decent person, at least that’s what his parents ingrained into him. Dave wasn’t in any position to question that.

The streetlights have turned on by the time he reaches the temple. He files inside, finding a couple of other volunteers cleaning up. Dave approaches the back room slowly: it’s a small, cramped room with one open doorway. He swallows uneasily when he approaches a part of the carpet that has been lightened with bleach. It was cleaned wrong, and the sheer image of it was enough to make Dave sick.

He gets to the closet, unlocking it and retrieving the bucket, sponge, and cleaning solution. He’s glad he wasn’t assigned to clean up in here, because he knows for a fact he couldn’t have done it. Instead, he trudges back out into the cold, pouring cleaning solution into the bucket and setting it on the ground. Dave scrubs the layers of graffiti, and while a few thin streams of pastel pink and blue run down the siding, it’s barely budging. If they used some kind of sealant, he’s out.

Dave puts both hands on the sponge, putting all of his weight into scrubbing. He stops watching the graffiti after a while, he’s certain it isn’t going anywhere. Instead, he looks up at the city skyline. Back when he lived in Southern Oregon, he could go out to the creek near the back of his house and lie in the tall grass, translucent white bugs dive-bombing into his eyes and mouth, and watch the stars. The light pollution in New York prevented him from seeing any of the stars, maybe a few every now and again, but they disappeared most nights. He used to live just outside the city limits of Klamath Falls, and the sky would be littered with stars. It was idyllic, though not quite his ideal. He loved city skylines, he loved all of the different people clustered together, he loved the total diversity of living in a city. And his hometown had none of that.

But, he missed the pizza places. Even though he lives in the epicentre of amazing pizza, he still misses the subpar, gooey mess that was Phil’s Pizzeria. For that matter, he even misses Phil. But, a lot of those memories faded over the years, his family moved to Manhattan when he turned ten. He had to be reminded about Phil, how he used to send pizza pun-themed cards for Christmas and Easter (because Phil didn’t seem to ever remember that the Katz’s were Jewish, but his heart was in the right place, so they tolerated it).

If he’d never moved, though, he never would have met Rabbi Blum, or Aaron, or Maddie and Josh, or even his ex who still texted him every now and again to check up on him. Besides, if he still lived in Klamath Falls he’d have moved out by nineteen or so, he’d have ended up in Portland or Seattle. He probably would have been worse off during his teens, especially. So, moving to Manhattan wasn’t the worst thing.

Though, he still got the right to hate New York for starless nights.

* * *

Diego found James Chapman sitting in a park, watching the first snowflakes begin to fall on Manhattan. He was shivering, his green coat was full of holes and even his massive beard couldn’t keep him warm. His accomplice, Alex Macintosh, gave only a few descriptive clues of what he looked like, but Diego was certain it had to be him. The coat, the beard, and when he stood to greet Diego, he towered over him. Turns out Macintosh hadn’t misled him. Or, if he had, he hadn’t just made up some character for Diego to hunt down.

“You’re James Chapman?” Diego hovers his finger over the button of his radio, situated on his shoulder. We’re the circumstances different, he’d have his hand on his knife. While he would have loved to take Chapman captive by himself, Patch didn’t trust him to not kill the perp the second he laid eyes on him. Diego’s being good so far.

The guy holds his hands up, he looks like a fifty-foot-tall skeleton. Granted, Macintosh was heavy, he could have been the only muscle they needed. He shrugs his sharp shoulders. “Guess so. Took you awhile to find me.”

Diego presses the button, leaning over while maintaining eye contact with Chapman. “Patch, we got him.”

Her car pulls up, and she steps out behind the door, pointing her gun at Chapman. “No sudden moves,” she warns, placing her finger near the trigger for added effect. But she knows he won’t run.

Diego grabs the guy’s wrists, cuffing him and leading him over to the car. Patch reads him his Miranda rights. “James Chapman, you're under arrest for the rape of Klaus Hargreeves. You have the right to remain silent, anything you say can and will be held against you in court.”

She goes on as Diego throws him into the back of the car. He slams the door shut, feeling immense satisfaction as the lock clicks. Patch slides into the front with him, a small, satisfied smile on her face.

“Surprised you didn’t take him out before I could bring the car over.” She grips the wheel, driving them back to the station.

“Me too.” He is genuinely pleased with himself. He pulls out his phone and brings up Ben’s number.

* * *

Ben has told Klaus that if he decides to actually do any work around the bookshop, he’ll buy him a phone so he doesn’t have to act as his brother’s secretary. So, Klaus has been answering calls about any potential Black Friday deals and discounts. He gives the same answer, “We’ll be offering gift certificates and buy two get one free deals on Black Friday.” He says it in a progressively snarkier tone, so most callers hang up without even saying “thank you.”

He’s starting to feel himself again, like when he used to buy pills from his dealer instead of whatever Ben has. Klaus looks out the window, tempted to flip over the ‘closed’ sign and call it a night. But, Ben would force Klaus back down to the counter and watch him until closing time.

Klaus has felt so weird since Diego called. He can’t figure out what happens next, when the trial is supposed to be, if there will be a trial at all. How are they going to gather witnesses? He leans against the counter, exhaling loudly.

It’s been two weeks. At least, it’s closer to two weeks than one. He feels like at any second he’s going to leave again, he’ll just decide to fuck back off to the streets, find someone new, start the cycle again. He can’t fathom the idea of actually staying. If he stays, how will his life look in a year? He can’t picture it. Klaus can’t see himself living a healthy, stable life, with people he can actually rely on, people who actually care about him beyond how much fun he is at parties and how good he is in bed, with a stable, healthy partner who actually likes him as a person. He feels like he’s already fucked up too much to redeem himself and improve his life. He’s doomed to an endless cycle of going home with whoever looks in his direction, couch surfing, partying, mental breakdowns, heartbreak, homelessness, rinse and repeat.

He’s already relapsed, he’s certain that it’s just a matter of time before he walks out on his family again. Klaus wants to be well, but he just can’t manage it.

He’s had the same depressing shit on repeat, _Carrie and Lowell_ by Sufjan Stevens. Particularly, “Blue Bucket of Gold.” The line “Friend, why don’t you love me?” makes him misty-eyed, and the following “Tell me you want me in your life” doesn’t help anything. Klaus doesn’t feel wanted. He’s had brief moments of feeling desired, but that was different. Desire is carnal, and want is something deeper, more spiritual. Something he doesn’t understand.

Klaus refuses to switch the album, though. It’s not like he’s making anyone besides himself feel existentially irrelevant. Sometimes sadness needs to be wallowed in before it can be moved on from. But sadness isn’t the right word. Klaus feels empty, a feeling he’s tried to stave off. He wants to do something, but he has no energy to do it.

Why can’t he just move on and be happy? Is that too much to ask? The universe just doesn’t want him to feel anything other than pain, loneliness, the lingering fear that he’ll never be accepted or understood for who he is? There’s no one to answer these questions, besides Klaus.

And, of course, he has no energy to do so.

Klaus switches to “John My Beloved.” He remembers when he imagined his alternate life. The one where he and Dave met under kinder circumstances. Maybe they would have met at a bar, he would have seen his brilliant blue eyes across the bar and admired them, bought him a drink, chatted him up all night, but forgot to get his number. “So can we pretend,” indeed.

He doesn’t want to think about Dave. He’s been mulling over the frown for hours, wondering if he well and truly screwed up this time. Klaus always wonders about that, worries about that. If only he knew Dave worried over him, too.

He doesn’t like that he was so noticeably out of it earlier. If Ben noticed a difference, he hadn’t said anything. When he’s high he’s supposed to be fun, happy Klaus, acting weird in a lighthearted way. Not numb and foggy-headed. He hates the high that Ben’s meds give him. But he feels like he can’t stop. Otherwise, it’s withdrawal, and Ben isn’t prepared to deal with that.

Klaus had enough of his regular stash to last him last week, and he’s certain this week is going to be a nightmare if he can’t find something else to keep his head floating.

“No, you shouldn’t go find Steve. You shouldn’t bring your fifty bucks and you shouldn’t buy some half-decent drugs.” Klaus is patting his back pocket, feeling his money tucked in there. “Don’t go get your coat and close the store for twenty minutes, tops.”

Klaus slips out unseen, and returns with a small packet of pills sitting right where his money was only minutes ago. He feels like he’s himself again, he’s not acting like “the new and improved Klaus, now including mental stability!”

He could have spent that money on new clothes, instead of borrowing everything from Ben, and Allison bringing over anything she decided was “out of season” for Klaus to dive through (where he got an asymmetrical black leather skirt that hit below his knees, what he planned to wear to Thanksgiving dinner in a few days). He could have bought a cheap little smartphone, maybe even a data card for it. He could have bought twelve of his favourite chocolate bars. But, the pills will keep him bubbly and bright. That’s all that matters.


	7. Thanksgiving and Stuff

Luther is helping Grace make dinner, effectively over-mashing the potatoes and bashing the cranberries until they resemble a juice more than a sauce. He’s determined for Thanksgiving to be better. Even though his siblings stopped texting him, and only responded to Grace asking if they’d be at dinner.

He knows he got heated the last time he saw all of his siblings, but he also knew that they had to understand his outburst. He justifies it to himself, saying that if any of them were in his position, they’d react exactly as he did. They could act all high and mighty, pretend they’d be so progressive and accepting of Klaus but stop caring about him the second that it’s not trendy. Luther would have called himself out on that, but he was already in the middle of that thought, so he was going to continue thinking about it. And that’s what his brothers, sisters, and Grace want him to do: question himself when he’s probably the most rational of his siblings, the most definite and set in his beliefs.

Luther watches Grace cook, she looks utterly delighted trying to give an herb rub to the turkey. Something she found on Pinterest, probably. He’s never gotten used to calling her “Mom.” Five only knew her as “Mom,” but the rest of them knew her when she was Grace. She’s the same age as them. Grace was one of the only friends to the siblings whose last name wasn’t “Hargreeves.” Her dad never cared if she was home, so she spent all of her time with the Hargreeves kids. Dad, however, took a liking to her: she was the ultra-feminine figure he wanted. So, the day she turned seventeen he proposed to her. Why she said “yes,” Luther didn’t understand. But, six months later they were married, they adopted Five soon after that. But, she looks happy living like this. So Luther just accepts the ugly way that she met Dad.

“Do you see any basil in the spice rack?” She asks, pulling her hands out from beneath the turkey skin. He sifts through, he has no idea what basil looks like, so he reads each label over before he finds it.

Grace smiles at him, mixing it in with the other spices. Luther goes out to the dark dining room. He’s set candles up on the centre of the table, illuminating the beading on the table runner. As far as he knows, they’re all going to be gathered around the table once again. Like Easter dinner. That's one of Luther’s best memories of his family, before everything fell apart. Then, one by one, everyone disappeared.

After Klaus, at age seventeen, Diego ran away with Eudora, then Allison moved in with her best friend, followed by Ben, and finally Vanya. Then, it was just Luther, Grace, Mr. Pogo, and Dad. Once Luther graduated college, he eventually moved out, too. By that time, Five had joined the family, so Luther didn’t feel bad moving out.

He’s disgusted by his siblings just ditching the family, giving their pathetic excuses as to why they’d ever feel too uncomfortable to stay with their family. They could all talk about how Dad abused them, but he was abused too, and he learned to forgive. They could, too. He felt no sympathy for them hanging on to it. Luther lays out the silverware, napkins, et cetera.

Five is sitting in the living room upstairs, probably practicing his programming, reading, whatever. He’s starting to enter his “I hate Dad” phase, just like the rest of them. Luther wants them all to be a family again, but he’s sick of listening to them complain about how bad they had it. He wants to smack them over the head that they didn’t have it nearly as bad as they could have. He could have beaten them, he could have shoved them into a tiny, dark closet, left physical scars.

Luther sits down at the table, in his normal spot, leaving a seat empty next to Dad’s place at the head of the table. Who those two seats were for, he never knew. Maybe one of them was for Mr. Pogo (who, as far as he knew, wasn’t attending, in favour of spending the holiday with his family). None of the kids were ever allowed to sit at those two seats. And, after a certain point, none of them wanted to.

From the kitchen, he can hear Grace humming. It puts him at ease.

* * *

Vanya carpools with Allison, Ben, Diego, and Klaus. They all chatter amongst themselves in the car, it feels like one of their late-night conversations after they gorged themselves on donuts. Klaus is lying across his brother and sister, his shoulders rested on Vanya’s lap and his feet propped on Ben’s. 

She’s been watching him text Dave, who she has taken a liking to. Sure, she barely knows him, but he’s been keeping constant contact with Klaus for a few weeks. That’s farther than she’s gotten with any girl she’s ever been interested in. But, according to his exasperation every time she brings up the idea, they’re not dating. They’re not flirting, they’re not crushing on each other, and she’s certain that’s half-bullshit. In fact, because of that, she’s decided on giving Klaus the number of someone who’d be interested in him once he’s given the word that he’s ready to date again.

Zephyr was Klaus’s type. Financially stable, a great cook, and just as bizarre as him. Maybe they’d just hook up occasionally, or they’d decide they were better off as friends. But, it was worth trying.

Klaus has just texted Dave a string of cowboy emojis, and Vanya wonders when he got a phone. Apparently, Ben gave Klaus his old phone since he already had a text chain with Dave, and it was just easier for Ben to transfer his contacts over to a new phone.

In the front seat, Diego and Allison are arguing over what to listen to. She’s been switching between Lizzo tracks while Diego tries to band the rest of his siblings together to play a classic rock station.

Vanya sides with Diego, but Ben and Klaus violently argue for Lizzo. “Just listen to ‘Juice,’ Diego. _Just join this cult with us._ ” Klaus hits the back of Diego’s seat. 

“If you can listen to 80s bubblegum pop, you can listen to a woman acknowledge that, yes, indeed, she’s sexy, and so are we.” Allison grins, and Diego sinks in his seat. She turns the radio up. 

He does decide this was a good choice, however, when Allison, Ben, and Klaus scream out “ _HEARD YOU SAY I’M NOT THE_ BADDEST BITCH, _YOU LYIN’!_ ” in perfect unison. The only one of them not joining in is Vanya, who can’t even try to start singing because she has her hands clasped over her mouth, cheeks flushed red.

When the song ends, Allison switches to “‘Cuz I Love You,” which insists on being belted by all those in the car except for Diego and Vanya. However, they end up joining in the end. If only this was their Thanksgiving celebration: singing Lizzo to themselves, getting unreasonably drunk and ordering takeout. It was rare they got Diego to spend time with them, and they had missed Klaus’s brand of off-the-wall behaviour in their group.

They end up pulling up to the house, all of them become tense. Allison turns the music down and watches the gated entrance, wondering if they should go the back way instead. They all gather at the gate, none of them exactly wanting to go inside. Though, the thought of seeing Five and Grace again outweighs Luther’s hot, stupid head. It’s just a given that holidays are uncomfortable.

“Do you think he’s at the door waiting for us?” Vanya asks, remembering how Luther would watch for people at the window, then stand at the door and wait for them to come up. Apparently he hated the sound of knocking, so it was easier to just open the door before anyone approached it.

“That, or he’s upstairs going to town on Dad’s ass.” Klaus moves his hands on either side of his face, flashing his ‘Hello’ and ‘Good Bye’ tattoos. He starts to gesture what he’s insinuating, but Ben forces his arms down.

“I think I’m fine not eating anymore.” Diego spins his knife around his fingers, a force of habit. “Any of you ready to leave?”

Allison pushes through and knocks on the door more firmly than is necessary. Though, it is needed, the knocks don’t echo further than the first level of the house. She places her hands on her hips, wishing that she was spending Thanksgiving watching Charlie Brown cartoons with Claire. Though, she feels obligated to visit home once or twice a year, and she didn’t visit on Easter.

Klaus has already moved on from trying to disgust his siblings into laughter by turning over to his phone. Dave has sent two messages so far, one is a picture of his cat, the other is asking if he’s at dinner yet. He’s promised to wait to start texting him again until Klaus is done visiting his family. But, he’s trying to convince Dave to call him so he can leave dinner early. He won’t bite.

Ben just wants to eat mashed potatoes and go home. He’s waited all day to stuff himself just like the turkey, then waddle home and fall into a food coma for a little while. Maybe he’ll watch some drama unfold, maybe they’ll all gang up on Luther again, he doesn’t know. But, there’s always the chance that some shit will go down.

* * *

Five watches his siblings pour through the door. He rarely questions that they’re over twice his age, and that Mom is the same age as them. It genuinely doesn’t come up in his mind more than once or twice every few weeks, or whenever he sees one of them. He closes his laptop, wandering over to the pillar-lined archway to watch them gather in the foyer.

He is first approached by Klaus, who leans on the other side of the same pillar as him. “How long do you think it’ll take before shit hits the fan?”

Five shrugs, looking up at his brother. “Ten, fifteen minutes. Luther’s tense.”

“We all are,” Vanya says, hushed, in response. She’s closer to them than her oversized brother, so she hopes he hadn’t heard anything. Though, he’s distracting himself talking to Allison. She visibly frowns at the face Allison makes when Luther grabs her shoulders: her eyebrows curve into worried arches and she smiles awkwardly.

“Maybe if Allison decides to throw herself under the bus, we’ll get to have a nice dinner.” Ben joins them. Five only respects Ben, he thinks he’s the only one of them who ended up genuinely well-adjusted. He knows he’ll end up the same, and reassures himself that if even one of the Hargreeves children turned out okay, it was worth having the money and inherited fame.

Diego keeps close to Allison and Luther, he wants to make sure he’s there if he tries anything with her. When he’s not getting a bigger reaction from Allison, he decides to move on to his huddled siblings, and his eyes land on Klaus.

He grimaces at Klaus’s crop top and pants, Five can already hear in his head why Luther is upset about his clothing: “come on, you’re just asking for it now.” Five shudders at the accuracy.

“What kind of outfit is that for Thanksgiving dinner?” He, of course, is the shining example of holiday chic: button down shirt, pressed khakis, and dress shoes he probably bought from an outlet mall. Even worse, he tried to style his scarcely-grown-out hair, it just didn’t work. Half of it was gelled down, but the hairs at the crown of his head, right at his cowlick, are sticking up. No one has had the heart to tell him.

Though, that minor detail is nothing compared to the “I got ready in the middle of a tornado” essense that Klaus radiates. However, Klaus isn’t trying to be perfect, unlike good old American boy Luther. He just wants to dress how he normally would, not try to act like he’s anything more than a chaotic mess who very much enjoys the way he presents himself. And Five respects that more than Luther trying so hard to make himself look older, wiser, more put-together. Like he’d know.

“I wore this to my ex’s wedding, with my boyfriend on one arm, and my girlfriend on the other. This is a very formal outfit, I think.” Klaus smirks up at Luther. He’s high. He hasn’t gone without four uppers every few hours since that first night he went to Steve again. But if he wants to be liked, he has to be off his ass, doing his best to pretend he’s floating in the sky with diamonds without any chemical help.

“Why doesn’t that surprise me?” Luther scoffs, leading them to the living room to wait for dinner.

* * *

Klaus ends up going to the bathroom immediately, locking the door and sitting on the sink, waiting for Dave to pick up the call. If he could, he’d just hide out here for the rest of dinner. He’d gained weight since he came in from the streets, and he felt absolutely disgusting. He missed his visible ribs, he missed the growling feeling in his stomach. He felt stronger starving than he did full. Weightless, almost. Like he could float.

“You’ve called me more than my ex ever did,” is the first thing out of Dave’s mouth when he answers the phone.

“I think you’re lying.” Klaus presses his back to the mirror, sighing happily. “ _Fuck,_ I’m away from Luther. I feel like a fucking helium balloon.”

Dave laughs softly, but Klaus senses something wrong in his voice. “Where are you?”

“Bathroom. I wish you were here.” Klaus’s thought process is starting to jumble. “We could have hid out in my bedroom.” He thinks the only time he brought a friend home, someone he met during a trip to the library. They hid in his bedroom, and she kissed him, which he reciprocated. She was his first girlfriend, and after they broke up, he briefly dated her older brother. He didn’t exactly regret doing that at the time, but he understood why she was so upset at him.

“ _Mmm._ I snuck my first boyfriend into our apartment. He climbed up the fire escape and hid in my closet until my parents went to bed. We played _Mario Kart_ and made out on my bed, then he left in the morning.” Dave’s voice swells, and it makes Klaus melt.

He looks around the bathroom, before curling up a bit, his face curling into a smirk. “So, on Valentine’s Day you’ll invite me to play Mario Kart at your place?”

“We’ll see about that.” Dave laughs gently. It loses that rose-tinted tone that excited him.

Klaus hears his siblings talking quite loudly outside, but he can’t make out what they're saying. If they’re talking about him, they could stand to be quiet. He takes the phone away from his ear briefly and cracks the door open in hopes of hearing what they’re practically screaming about. But, when he does that, he finds that he’s walked into the middle of a lull in the conversation. He’s baffled, but he returns to the bathroom, curling up on the floor. His free hand tangles into the shag bath mat.

“Hey, when you close your eyes, do you ever see things?” Klaus asks, using the most genuine tone he can. He’s thought to wait on unloading more of his baggage onto Dave, and this is probably the lightest thing he could bring up to him.

“Like dreams?” He asks right back. Klaus knows he isn’t asking it to be snarky, well, he says he knows but truthfully he feels it could go either way. And his feelings betray him more often than not.

“No. Like, when you blink, do you ever see like, faces?” He presses his hand over his mouth, waiting for Dave to process that and respond.

It’s an agonizing long time, he wonders if he should just retract what he said, they’ll keep flirting with each other and going nowhere. That’s more comfortable than whatever this conversation is. He waits, he fidgets, he presses his ear to the door and hears nothing. But, the second Dave starts talking again, he’ll hear them yelling once again.

“Sometimes. I think it’s normal.” He tries to speak calmly, he can sense Klaus’s increasing tension. “How often do you see them?”

“Every single time. They're always there. Sometimes I’m lying in bed and I can see this vivid image of this deformed ghost leaning over my bed, looking me right in the face. But it never moves. It just stares at me, and it screams.” He sinks against the wall, wanting to end the call now. He’s gotten too sad, Dave doesn’t want to deal with this shit.

He hovers his finger over the button to hang up, and finally presses it. He feels bad not saying goodbye, giving any reason for him leaving. He just texts a simple “text you later” before he leaves the bathroom. When he rejoins his family, he doesn’t realise that his eyeliner is more smudged than when he showed up at the house.

* * *

Dinner is quiet. It’s just silverware clashing against plates, a few scattered exhales that came out louder than expected, and the whir of Reginald’s oxygen machine. He has a full plate of food, but he just stares at his children, all of whom he has at least one reason to hate. Though, his eyes mostly fall on Vanya, since she’s sat directly across from him. She takes small bites of her food, she feels his eyes burrowing past her skull and examining each little flaw in her. She avoids sharing any eye contact with him.

Grace has been actively making sure she doesn’t sit down. She’s used to him being confined to his room, she forgot the fear he brought on, and all of the anxiety that bubbles to the surface. So, she’s bringing out different plates, refilling drinks, and distracting herself with the two pumpkin pies in the oven. Anything so she doesn’t have to take the seat on his left.

Luther tries to spark conversation with Reginald, who doesn’t take the bait. He just sits and watches.

Klaus has been texting underneath the table. When he left the bathroom, he went to Vanya and asked for Zephyr’s number. She didn’t expect him to be asking for it so soon, but she gave it over, anyway. Who is she to say when Klaus is ready? Now, he’s doing the Dave routine with Zephyr, who seems to be very receptive to it. Ben leans over and watches Klaus’s texts, though he wishes he hadn’t. They’re setting up a hookup at Vanya’s apartment since she said she’d be at Allison’s apartment to help her set up for Christmas.

“You’re not texting Dave?” He asks quietly, and Klaus nods.

“I don’t want him to get sick of me already.” He doesn’t even look up from his conversation with Zephyr.

Ben goes back to looking at his plate, pushing his food around it and taking quick glances at his siblings. Luther gets up from the table and goes to the kitchen. Diego is ignoring any attempts at conversation. Allison is trying to enjoy herself, but it’s not working. Klaus has finally put down his phone. Five slipped away at some point. Vanya is trying to finish her meal so she can hide out in her old bedroom until everyone else decides to leave.

And Ben is trying his best to enjoy his mashed potatoes.

Dinner ends pretty unceremoniously, and the siblings gather once again in the living room. They all relax, but Luther is definitely looking to start a fight.

“Are any of you guys going to say goodbye to Dad before he goes back upstairs?” He sounds accusatory, which none of them appreciate.

“Do you ever turn the hostility off, Luther?” Allison holds her hands up, absolutely exasperated. “It’s like you want us to avoid you.”

He is taken aback. He stares at her for a moment, offended that she’d say something like that. So, the peace has been broken once again.

“I’m just saying. Dad probably won’t make it to Chris—” Luther begins another rant, but he’s cut off by Diego, who scoffs loudly. Ben, Klaus, and Vanya have gathered on the couch, and they have to muffle their cackles.

“How do you get off guilting all of us into forgiving Dad? As far as I’m concerned, we don’t owe him forgiveness. He was a dick to us, and he hasn’t tried to make up for it.” Diego’s rebuttal is followed by a small racket of _whoops,_ all courtesy of his seated siblings. Allison smiles warmly at him.

Then, she turns on the offense, glaring at Luther. “You know, I hate to agree with Diego, but he’s right. All you do is complain about how we don’t appreciate Dad enough. It’s like you don’t get that it’s normal to hate someone for abusing you and acting like that’s just what parenting is.”

Luther opens his mouth to speak again, but all that comes out is a tense stammer. He tries to formulate something to defend himself, but he can’t figure out what to say. While he doesn’t like admitting it, they have a point. But, he doesn’t feel like he can lose the argument. “It’s not like he hit us or anything.”

“So just because he never physically hurt us, that means he’s not a bad father?” Ben is never the type to poke his head into the conversation, but he feels a rush after saying it. He’s spent so long just listening to Luther spout his bullshit without actually objecting to what he’s saying, it’s so rewarding actually calling him out.

“I mean,” Luther says, though he stops once again. He looks over at Allison, she’s the only one who would defend him, maybe she would side with him now. But, no. The look on her face is cold, firm, unmoved by Luther’s pathetic plea for help, agreement, anything. “Yeah, I guess.”

“I hope you never end up having kids. Though, I don’t think I’d worry about that. You seem like the lifetime virgin type.” Diego’s arms are folded over his chest. Luther glances around at all of his siblings, but they don’t seem to let up.

“Is this because of what I said to Klaus?” Luther grimaces.

“Nah. I think it’s about how you’ve been kissing Dad’s ass rather than stick up for any of us.” Klaus still sounds light saying this, he hasn’t come down yet.

Luther ends up going quiet. Grace shows up in the living room, carrying a box of Christmas decor. She says her goodbyes to the siblings that carpooled together, leaving Luther to help Grace set up the tree. He hasn’t even quite walked through what happened, he doesn’t understand how he ended up losing. However, he’ll come back from this. Klaus will disappoint them, he’ll go back to the life he’s had for the last fourteen years and they’ll regret caring so much about helping him.

Well, Luther tells himself that. There’s some gnawing doubt that Klaus is actually going to end up proving him wrong, and he’ll get back on his feet and become stable. It’s a coin toss if this will last or not.


End file.
